


Susan White and Rose Lucy

by LucyCrewe11 (Raphaela_Crowley)



Series: Narnian Fairy Tales [3]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, No Incest, Romance, They Were All Born In Narnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 10:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 52,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25349251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphaela_Crowley/pseuds/LucyCrewe11
Summary: Living in a small cottage in Narnia near a forest with their widowed mother, Susan and Lucy find much more in a new unexpected 'friend' than they had ever dreamed possible.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie/Lucy Pevensie, Peter Pevensie/Susan Pevensie
Series: Narnian Fairy Tales [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847062
Comments: 35
Kudos: 12





	1. Rose Trees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rose_Tudor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_Tudor/gifts).



> Written August 2009 through September 2009

Once upon a time in the magical land known as Narnia, there lived a widow who was called by the locals, and by the travelers who had known her kindly hospitality, Widow Pevensie.

Widow Pevensie lived in small cottage at the edge of a forest in the western part of the world-The Lantern Waste-with two gorgeous roses trees, each planted on either side of the front door. The one that was a few inches taller than the other, with ashen and ebony leaves, grew only white roses; while the latter, smaller with richer-coloured leaves, grew only red ones.

And, odd as it might seem, the widow's two daughters who lived with her were just like the two trees. The eldest, paler complexioned with a stunning mantle of long brown hair so dark that it appeared ebony-black in some lightings, was called Susan White. The younger, more rosy-faced, with brown hair of a much lighter, fairer sort than that of her elder sister, was called Rose Lucy. However more often than not, part of the girls' names were dropped to the point where they were almost always simply referred to as, Susan and Lucy-occasionally graced with the surname most often reserved for their mother.

Susan was quieter and more cautious than her sister; her curiosity having great limits which kept her quite contently at their mother's side helping with the mending, baking, and house-work. She liked routines and sameness and had little sense of adventure-save for the rare romps she submitted herself to when her little sister did not wish to go off alone and sought out her companionship.

Whereas, Lucy, loved to explore and climb trees and chase butterflies and do a million things at once. Though she willingly helped around the house (indeed, thanks to _both_ girls, the little cottage was always very neat and tidy), one could always see her wandering, excited, wonder-filled eyes drifting slowly towards the window, longing to see what ever might be seen. She adored traveling story-tellers simply because they knew about so many things that she herself could not yet travel to see with her short little legs and her sister and mother that kept her home-bound.

"Mum, I'm going to the forest for a little while." Lucy told Widow Pevensie, grabbing a small tightly-woven straw basket by the doorway in case she came across any berries for her mother to bake into a tart later (although she had always had the bad habit of eating most of them on the way home, the basket ending up almost half-empty by the time it reached the cottage).

Widow Pevensie had been mending a small embroidered white smock that Lucy had accidentally torn from one of her dresses three days earlier, trying to swing from a branch ("Just like a little monkey." Susan had teased when she'd seen Lucy wobbling just a few inches above the ground, her arms stretched up and fingers tightly curled around the thick russet bark). She stuck the needle into the fabric just deep enough so that she wouldn't lose it or else risk stabbing her own lap with it when she got up.

"You know I don't like you going into the forest alone, Lucy." She reminded her younger daughter, sighing deeply as she shook her head sympathetically unsure of exactly where Lucy's love of exploring came from-she certainly hadn't inherited it from _her_.

"I wont be alone." said Lucy, her eyes widening innocently the way they often did when others saw dangers her youthful eyes could not detect and her harmless mind could not understand. "Susan's coming with me."

Indeed, Susan was just finishing making up the bed she and Lucy shared and getting ready to go with her. The cottage itself, though large enough for the three of them to be reasonably comfortable, had only one large room with a dark brown cloth hung in a tapestry sort of fashion to separate the little corner where the girls' bed was. Widow Pevensie herself slept in a small, movable cot by the hearth. After she finished, Susan smoothed out the front of her dress and slid the curtain aside, noticing a small tear she would need to patch up later when she got back home.

"Susan, do keep an eye on her." Widow Pevensie smiled at her elder daughter knowing well that the warning was very nearly unnecessary; Susan always took good care of her little sister.

As they were lifting the creaky black metal door-latch to leave the cottage together, Lucy slipped her hand into Susan's.

"We will not leave each other." said Susan, squeezing her little sister's hand just a little tighter.

This was their usual exchange and Lucy had known her part since she was two. She squeezed back. "Never so long as we live in this world-until the day we pass on into Aslan's country."

"What one has..." Widow Pevensie started, picking up her needle to reassume her mending, her eyes twinkling in a way that only a loving mother's can.

"...she must share with the other." Susan laughed merrily, finishing the sentence for her. "We know, Mum."

"Goodbye, my dears." She watched them leave; Susan walking in a graceful almost-slow manner, as was her way, and Lucy skip-trotting jollily by her side, as was hers.

The hot sun rarely ever seemed to upset the cool, lush, green canopy of the dense forest; some braches even intertwining closer than the two sisters hearts as they giggled and talked and teased and searched for red berries and small animals together.

"I say, look!" Susan exclaimed, pointing over at something speckled and fluffy with her free hand as it hopped fearlessly towards them. "A rabbit."

"I don't suppose it's a _talking_ rabbit?" Lucy wondered aloud, bending down to get a better look at the little fellow.

"I don't think so, Lucy." Susan noted, realizing that though there was a faint sparkle of intelligence in the small creatures eyes, it wasn't enough to give him speech.

"Oh, but he is friendly!" Lucy had to say, bending down close to rabbit, who, sensing no danger from the sweet fair-haired girl or her gentle sister, merely twitched his little velvety nose and took a hop closer so that they were pretty much face-to-face.

"Here," Susan took a small piece of lettuce out of her smock pocket and offered it to her sister (she always kept some small bit of pastry, vegetable, or fruit handy because Lucy was for ever trying-and very often succeeding-to make friends with whatever animals they came across during their little forest-romps).

Lucy took the lettuce bit and offered it to the rabbit. It, liking the little lassie even more now that she-in addition to not being a threat-was offering food, ate it right from her hand; its little lips rubbing across the skin on her palm. She giggle-squealed and pulled her hand away when it had finished.

Although the rabbit continued to hop after its new friends down a few shady paths along the bush-lined trails, he soon realized that they weren't going to offer anything more in the way of treats, lost interest, and got distracted by a very colourful butterfly it simply had to follow.

"Lucy, you goose!" laughed Susan as she picked a few extra berries, noticing a small red stain around her little sister's lips. "Save some to bring home, will you?"

"You know I can't help it." Lucy winked at her, wiping her hands quickly into the folds of her smock as soon as Susan's head was turned.

"They are good though, aren't they?" Susan had to admit, popping a single red berry delicately into her mouth, managing to savor it perfectly without getting a single drop of its juice on herself.

Suddenly, Lucy reached over and gripped her sister's arm very tightly, urging her to look over to the left where, just a little ways off, stood a very magnificent creature. A white stag; no, _the_ white stag, Lucy was certain of it. He stood tall and majestic on his four ashen-coloured hooves, his white-gold antlers glittering in the afternoon sun, his snow-white flanks fairly glowing like a little candle from a bay window, suggesting cheerful flames within.

"He's lovely." Susan said breathlessly. If she was a little less excited than Lucy, her awe was certainly not diminished.

"Su, look, he's coming this way!" Lucy gasped, feeling suddenly light-headed. "Make a wish, quick! You know the white stag grants wishes."

"I thought that was only if you caught him."

"Close enough! We caught _sight_ of him, didn't we?" Lucy's cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled so brightly that Susan couldn't refuse her altogether.

"I doubt we'll get it granted but just for fun, I suppose we could wish for some nonsense, no one's here to jest at us for it anyway."

"Well, wish for _something_!" She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.

"Why don't you do it?" Susan didn't know what to wish for. If she'd truly believed they were going to get anything from the flimsy magical creature (and she wasn't even sure he really _was_ the one from the fairy-stories Widow Pevensie sometimes told them before bed) she might have wished for something sensible that they needed, like more mending thread or good wheat to make into bread for the winter. Sad to say, although Susan was a very gentle, sweet, thoughtful young lady, imagination had never been her strong point; it wasn't even extenvie enough to make her wish for some pratical magical object like a basket of bread that never gets empty or a cloth that never tears.

"Because I think _you_ should, you're the eldest." Lucy explained, peering over at her so hopefully that she simply had to give in.

"Fine." Susan looked up at the stag who was just a little nearer to them now and said, "I wish..." What to wish for? Nothing important, it didn't matter. "...I wish that my sister and I will, one day, both marry king's sons. There!"

Lucy burst out laughing, cracking up so hard that she had to hold onto her own ribs just to steady herself. "Oh, Su, is that the best you could come up with?"

"I thought you believed in the white stag's wishes." Susan teased, arching an eyebrow playfully.

"I do, but honestly!" Lucy grinned at her and shook her head. "That is just like something you would come up with." She elbowed her pretend-sharply. "Getting us stuck with two dull courtly king's sons!"

Susan jabbed back. "Yes, can't you see it? Us, Susan White and Rose Lucy Pevensie, members of the court."

"You'd be the queen, your husband would have to be the eldest one or else it would seem awkward."

"Oh, yes, I see! And what would they call me?" She tossed her head back in a rather silly imitation of what she thought a queen would act like (she had never actually met one so she didn't know). "What are my virtues?"

"Well..." Thought Lucy, speaking her mind aloud. "...you are very gentle. Everyone says so."

"Queen Susan The Gentle!" Susan gasped for breath in-between bouts of laughter as if it was the most absurd thing she had ever heard of in her life.

"And what would they call me?"

"Well, you're brave." Susan mused.

"Lucy The Brave?" somehow it didn't quite sound just right to her.

"Nope, better!" she snapped her fingers, getting it now. "Lucy The Valiant."

"I like it." Lucy decided, sneaking another berry into her mouth.

"Well it doesn't matter." Susan said practically. "No king's sons for us."

"If you don't want one, you shouldn't have wished for it."

Susan sighed and tenderly moved a little lock of stray hair over her little sister's shoulder. "You'll understand when you're older...not everything is really magical."

"No," Lucy whispered to herself, very low so that Susan couldn't over-hear. "but _some_ things are."

Much later, when the twilight hours were coming to their end, Widow Pevensie stood outside the cottage breathing in the cool nearly-nighttime air and waiting to see if her daughters would be returning. She didn't worry about them very much as long as they were together. Apart, she feared all sorts of trouble little Lucy might get into or some danger that might frighten sensible Susan out of her wits; but together, the girls were quite safe. No one meant them any harm and they made an excellent team.

This wasn't the first time they had gone off into the forest and had not come back at night, and Widow Pevensie knew they couldn't have strayed too far-they would return to her soon enough. In the meantime, she would wait a while longer, light a lantern at the front door in case they arrived when it was still dark, and then go to bed herself. There was nothing else for it; she couldn't go wandering looking for them in the dark, getting herself lost for all of her pains, and sitting around biting her nails didn't benefit anyone. Calling out a search party (even if she had thought it necessary) would have been a great deal more trouble than it was worth as the nearest neighbors were a good many miles away from their secluded little cottage and rose trees.

Back in the forest, when they realized they'd gone further than they'd intended and gotten themselves just a little lost, Susan and Lucy wandered about a bit longer looking for a comfortable spot to lie down and sleep.

"It's getting much too dark to keep on like this." Susan said, dropping onto the ground, not caring where she sat so long as it didn't hurt her bottom, it was too dark to see anything and she felt she could not keep walking for even another half-second.

Lucy yawned and sat down beside her. "Can you see anything? Anything at all?"

"No, everything is black now." Susan sighed, stretching and letting out a small yawn of her own. "Do let's get some sleep. We'll go home to mother in the morning."

"Mmm." was Lucy's sleepy reply as she dozed off, laid out on the ground which was surprisingly warm and not nearly as hard as she'd though it might be.

Dawn broke over the trees; slowly, but surely, filling the forest with its familiar green light for yet another day and Lucy's eyes snapped open. She perceived a strange boy standing just a few feet away from her and Susan watching them closely. He was dressed in a tunic of a whitish hue and his short hair was very dark, at least as dark as Susan's. The boy kept his hand on the hilt of what looked to be a very fine sword in a silver scabbard dangling from his side. It seemed that he had not noticed Lucy awakening just yet because he turned away for a few moments, whistled to himself, sat down on a nearby rock, then stood up again a few seconds later, paying her no mind at all.

He turned to look at the two girls again and smiled kindly at Susan's sleeping figure. Turning to look at Lucy's and smile at her, too, he saw her eyes were open wide and her mouth hung open slightly, gawking at him in surprise and amazement.

"Hullo." said Lucy.

The boy did smile at her-a very nice smile, she liked it-but he didn't say anything, rather, looking up and seeing that there was enough light to see them home now, he turned to leave. Susan awoke just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of the boy's back as he was leaving.

"Who was that?" Susan whispered to her sister.

"I don't know." Lucy answered softly, looking at the place where he'd seemed, not only to walk off but also to sort of vanish into the increasing light (if she wasn't only imagining it, her mind muddled from the long night in the forest).

Without warning, Susan let out a yelp of horrified surprise and pulled her sister's arm back towards the nearest, solidly-rooted tree as speedily as she could manage it.

"Ow!" Lucy protested, feeling Susan's nails dig into her a bit too sharply. "What-"

Susan didn't speak or try to defend herself, rather, her eyes stayed in one place and Lucy followed them to the source of all the bother and tugging. They had been sleeping just a few paces away from the edge of a deep gorge below which, dozens of jagged rocks and a thin, quick-moving river flowed, making a deep rushing sound they had somehow missed the night before.

"He was making sure we didn't fall." Lucy realized, looking over at Susan and poking the side of her arm lightly to get her attention. "The boy, I mean."

Still a little shaken, Susan took Lucy's hand again and stood up. "Come, we should start for home now."

Not without looking over her shoulder just in case the boy should come back and she might catch another glimpse of him, Lucy allowed herself to be led away.

When they arrived back at the cottage, they found their mother dozing in her mending chair. She awoke, very pleased to see her girls back home and well just as she'd believed they would be and listened to their tale of the strange boy in the white tunic at the gorge.

"It must have been the fairy that watches over good children." Widow Pevensie said softly, giving little Lucy a loving pat on the cheek and Susan a warm smile as she lifted herself up from her chair to start the day and perhaps do something about getting some breakfast for them all.

Susan snorted at her mother's words just slightly, she had always been scornful of such things (recall the incident with the white stag) and was already starting to think-and even believe-that they hadn't really seen the boy at all and had just made him up as a story for fun.

But Lucy, who couldn't bring herself to stop thinking about what had happened back in the forest, went on believing that he really might have been a fairy-boy and was always on the watch for him all that spring and summer.


	2. Visitor

No spring is truly eternal and no summer lasts for ever; autumn set in without warning over the land of Narnia, covering the ground with leaves of crimson and gold, and later, light frost, as if warning that winter was only a few short weeks away.

It was on one of these uncomfortable in-between major season nights, too chilly for unlit black coal and too warm for a full-on roaring fire, snuggled up in what had probably once been a wool blanket before it aged and became a victim of patchwork turning it into more of a quilt, that Lucy began to have strange dreams. In them, she would be walking through the forest at what seemed to be the twilight hour and always thought she saw some sort of white light ahead of her, beckoning to her.

It was a kindly voice, not high like a woman's, deeper, like that of an older boy or of a man. "Lucy..."

She might have thought it to be Aslan, the great Lion, but she'd met him before (with her sister and mother), and could tell the voice wasn't his. It wasn't quite rich enough, there wasn't any hint of a golden timbre, no sense of Lion-likeness. It was certainly a human's voice, that much she was pretty sure of. Still, what male human would call her name? Really, how many male humans actually knew it? Apart from her father, who'd died when she was very, very small, she could very nearly count on one hand all the men she had met in her life with the exception of a few travelers here and there.

Still, no matter how far the dream-Lucy wandered in the forest, she never got any closer to the light, nor the voice, and the twilight hour never ended; the sun didn't set. Lucy always woke up before anything was clarified.

Susan, who-Aslan bless her-was so complete in her practicality, that even her dreams were, on the whole, often disturbingly realistic (literally, of herself washing clothes and mending tears and sweeping the cottage just as she would in real life), had no real interest in Lucy's sudden forest outings in the land of nod. It was her job, she felt, to protect her sister from _real_ dangers, not dreamt ones. What did it matter if Lucy thought someone was trying to call her? Lucy was always pretending things and thinking things; it was just part of what made Lucy, well...Lucy. So, while she listened in her usual polite, sisterly fashion, she didn't harp on it the way her little sister did.

When winter arrived, one of the coldest and wettest winters either of the two sisters could remember, even Widow Pevensie having very few worse ones to compare it to, Lucy's dreams changed. She was no longer in the forest going after white lights, rather, she was, oddly enough, sleeping in bed just as she was in real life. Only, in the dream, she could hear the footsteps of unfamiliar boots that were not, she was positive, her mother's winter shoes, nor Susan's dainty light foot-falls. They got closer to the bed each night and soon, it occurred to Lucy that the feet were not heading over towards the side where Susan always slept, but towards her own side. Once, she thought she caught a glimpse of the faint out-line of a hand coming quite close to her shoulder as if to shake her awake, but she woke up mere seconds later, before anything more could happen.

On the night before the first hard snow-fall in that icy, bitter, almost-deathly winter, in her dream, she saw the hand again. This time, though, she got both a better look at it-it was thicker than that of her mother's or sister's and the arm it was attached to seemed thicker, too. And the hand _did_ actually come down on her shoulder and gently shake her. "Lucy, wake up, I need to talk to you."

Not like Susan's voice. Not like mother's voice. Very like the white light's voice from the autumn dreams.

She opened her eyes and turned to look at the face; it was sort of dark but she could tell it was a boy, and she felt as if they had met at least once before though the rum lighting didn't help her place him. Blinking twice, she sat up in the bed. Susan moaned; she didn't like when Lucy moved too much in her sleep, it irritated her.

"Lucy." said the boy, noticing she was doing nothing but blinking and squinting at him.

"Who are you?" She finally managed to whispered in a very low voice so as not to wake anyone else up (she was the sort of girl who had manners even in her dreams, having had a good deal of them hammered into her brain by Susan and Widow Pevensie since birth).

"No time for that now." He whispered back, sort of snappishly. "I have to tell you something, Lucy, it's very important."

"How do you know my name?" Lucy wanted to know, deciding she would hear him out when his presence became a little less alarming.

"I heard your sister say it, she talks in her sleep." He explained hurriedly.

"But how-" Lucy started, feeling more confused than ever.

"Oh, _girls_!" He groaned, making a motion almost as if to slap himself on the forehead out of frustration. "Never stop prattling on and let a chap speak his mind!"

Lucy pursed her lips and frowned, somewhat offended. She may have been of the female sex but she certainly wasn't one of those gossiping never-shut-up sort of girls. Why was there some strange boy wandering around their cottage anyway?

"Come now," he said; there was a little more light in the cottage as it seemed to be getting closer to dawn and he could make out the displeased expression on her face. "don't be cross, really, I haven't said anything _so_ horrible."

And truly he hadn't, not really. But that wasn't what made Lucy's face change so suddenly and light up with excitement. Because of the extra light, she could see him more clearly, just as he could see her; it was the boy from the forest! The one mother had called a fairy! She could tell because even though this tunic was more of a gray colour rather than a white one, his face and hair were still the same and he still wore the silver scabbard at his side.

"It's you!" Lucy blurted out, still rather softly though a little louder than she had intended so she lowered her tone a bit. "You're the boy who was watching over Susan and me that night at the gorge."

"Yes, that's me." He admitted quickly, taking a step closer to the bed and eyeing the small bay window at his back nervously as if worried either about something coming after him or of the time. "Now then, here's what I need to tell you: My brother is coming tomorrow night. You and your sister have to watch over him, alright? Let him stay in the cottage-it's safer and warmer."

"How do you mean?" Lucy's brow crinkled slightly. Brother? The fairy who watches over good children-if that's what he was-had a brother?

"Just let him stay with you when he wants to, alright then?" The boy seemed even more anxious now, though Lucy couldn't figure why.

She supposed it wasn't a very great thing to offer someone hospitality. Widow Pevensie always offered tired travelers shelter for a night or so when they needed it and if the boy was this desperate for his brother to have a place to stay for a while surely she could promise him that if it would put him at ease.

"I guess he can stay...for a little while..." Lucy told the boy at last.

"Good." He breathed a sigh of relief and turned to leave. Then he stopped suddenly to say something over his shoulder. "But um, you might not know him for who he is right away. He looks... _different_...in all that fur."

Oh, thought Lucy-as the boy started to fast-walk away again, I suppose he means his brother has a large fur coat he wears in the winter? "Mum wanted to buy fur coats for me and Susan but we can't afford them."

The boy stopped again. "Are you very poor?"

"I don't know." Lucy admitted with a small shrug of her shoulders, never having truly given the matter much thought. When Widow Pevensie said they could have something, they had it and when she said she was very sorry but they couldn't have something, then they didn't. It was as simple as that.

"I see. Goodnight, Lucy." He chuckled slightly, the first real hint of a sense of humor Lucy had seen in him as if yet. "Or, should I say, good morning."

Lucy's eyes shot open. She wasn't sitting up talking to the strange boy from the gorge, rather she was still laying down on the bed with her head on the pillow, turned to the opposite side of the window. An inch or so away, Susan snored contently as if she hadn't a care in the world.

At first, Lucy was somewhat indignant that Susan could sleep through something so strange going on in their cottage until it came to her that her dreams were not automatically common knowledge even when they felt as real as the one she'd just had. Strangely enough, dream or not, Lucy had the very odd feeling that the boy's brother, whoever he was, really would come to stay at their cottage that night. Of course, Susan would just think that was pure nonsense and be quite cranky if Lucy woke her up and told her the news now; but surely when she saw the boy's brother at their front door that night, she would have to believe it. Then Lucy realized she hadn't even learned his name or even the brother's name and made up her mind that she would not forget to ask the brother all about everything when he came.

That night, Lucy was a little restless waiting for the visitor. Her strange conviction that he would come hadn't lessened at all during the day and she had even slipped up and mentioned something to Susan about it-and she of course thought her little sister was just making up a story as a sort of game and didn't really say anything about it.

Now they were all seated around Widow Pevensie's chair and she held in her hands a book of old tales instead of a needle and thread, reading to her daughters by the warm orange-coloured glow of the firelight. That night's story was about a soldier who was given a magical sack that could catch anything inside of it-all he had to do was order it in there.

" _When the soldier wanted to capture something he would hold open his great sack and say, 'What is this? Do you know what it is?' and the creature would answer, 'A sack?'_ " Widow Pevensie read aloud, pausing for dramatic effect as the wind outside the cottage howled and blew the thick swarms of bee-like snowflakes around in little mini-hurricanes. " _The man gave his soon-to-be prey a sharp look and said to it, 'If this is a sack, get in it!' and the creature had no choice but to jump into the sack and let itself be caught._ "

Lucy actually forgot about the boy's brother for a little while and allowed herself to be caught up in the story. It ended badly with the soldier capturing the source of all death and evil in his sack and then having to release it all over again for some reason or other that Lucy couldn't understand, thinking the ending of the story quite a let down. All the same, when it was over she couldn't resist looking over at Susan with a rather impish smile.

"What?" as it happened, Susan was mending an old burlap sack they used to store rice and other grains on good years when they could afford it while she listened to the story.

"Susan, what's that you're mending? Do you know what it is?" Lucy forced back an involuntary giggle.

"A sack." Susan replied, wondering why Lucy couldn't tell what it was for herself.

"If that is a sack, get in it." Lucy waited for a moment. Nothing happened but Susan did finally get the joke.

"Nice try, Lu." She smiled back at her and shook her head, thinking how very dull life without a little sister would be.

Widow Pevensie chuckled a little at her elder daughter's grace and her younger daughter's playfulness, thinking only how wonderful it was to have two such good-hearted children.

A sudden rapping at the door, shaking the wooden planks on the floor just below it, snapped them out of their thoughts.

"Lucy, dear, please make haste and go open the door." Widow Pevensie said sympathetically. "It must be a traveler seeking shelter for the night and anyone out there is sure to freeze to death in this weather."

The brother! Thought Lucy-getting up and rushing over to the door to lift up the latch and open it.

Susan stopped mending the sack and let her eyes drift curiously over to the door, wondering what the traveler would be like. Sometimes they had visitors who where very old and weak and didn't say much, but other times they had jolly-faced persons who liked to tell amusing jokes. Susan had a way of taking a liking to both sorts but she always wondered for that one moment before the door was opened all the way, which they would be and wished she could know before-hand and prepare herself.

The first thing Lucy saw was thick, black fur absolutely covered, even crusted-over, with snow and frozen rain. Thinking this to just be the brother's fur coat (it was, but not in the way she was expecting), she held the door open a little wider so she could let him in. A slight grunt came out of whatever was under all that black fur and a black nose and stuck its way in, sniffing a little. It wasn't a person at all; at least, not a _human_ person. It was a large black bear.

Stunned and caught completely off-guard, Lucy made a short backwards leap from the doorway and let out a scream.

Susan, even more frightened than Lucy, yelped, dropped the sack on the floor, and hid behind their mother's cot.

The bear, taking all this in with his steady rarely-blinking eyes, seemed a little distraught, but he didn't spring at anyone. He didn't pounce on Lucy who was the closest or pull himself completely into the cottage. Rather, he shifted his sad glance over from Lucy to Widow Pevensie as if to make a plea.


	3. Fur

"Please," Stammered the bear, an almost-human tone flowing roughly under the deep sound from the great beast's chest. "I wont hurt you; truly, I wouldn't."

"It's a _talking_ bear!" Lucy realized-for some reason she had not expected him to be one.

Susan lifted her head up slightly from behind the cot to get a better look at him, but she didn't come out.

"I'm only cold and wet and want to warm myself a bit by that lovely fire you have going there." The bear begged, his eyes, which as a surprisingly sharp contrast to his black-as-night fur, were a bright blue, looked almost as if they just might fill up with tears.

"You poor bear!" Widow Pevensie exclaimed softly, sensing the creature's angst. "Come in and warm yourself as much as you need to, just be mindful that you don't go too close and burn your fur."

The bear's lips curled up in what Lucy thought must have been a smile. "Thank you most kindly, I was told that I would be welcomed here."

Lucy was no longer afraid of the bear, having put all of her dread behind her by this point, but Susan remained crouched behind the cot for a little longer until Widow Pevensie told her to come out, that the bear would do her no harm.

As he entered the cottage, snow sliding off his back and landing in very unpleasant splats all over their nice clean floor, he lowered his head apologetically-Susan always thought afterwards that if he had been a white human instead of a black bear, he would have blushed-and pushed himself all the way in so that Lucy could latch the door behind him.

"Who told you about us?" Widow Pevensie asked the bear.

"My brother." he replied simply, with a sort of beast-shrug, only shaking even _more_ snow onto the floor.

Lucy giggled into the palm of her left hand. Was it possible? Could this really be the boy's brother? Was that what he had meant when he said he looked different? Well, the bear certainly _did_ have fur, if nothing else.

The bear's eyes looked at Lucy with a tender expression; it was obvious that he took a liking to her at once. As lovingly as if he was merely an older brother to her and not some strange talking beast who had just arrived at their door, he lifted one paw and patted her on the head twice very lightly.

Seeing this made Susan laugh a little and come all the way over to the bear-how harmless he seemed now!-smiling at him. "Hullo, Mister Bear."

The bear paused with his mouth hanging open just the littlest bit, feeling rather tongue-tied. He had caught a couple of glimpses of her before and he had seen her hiding behind the cot-and peering out at him from there-but this was his first time really seeing her up close. As it was, he could barely tear his eyes away from her.

She's so beautiful, he thought-wishing he was standing before her in a less disgraceful, untidy state, or at least, in a very different form.

"If you don't mind my asking, who is your brother, bear?" The widow requested, not unkindly. "We have never had a guest like you before."

"My brother is not like me...at least, not now." The bear said in a soft half-growl of a voice. "You have never had him for a guest anyway though, so I suppose it doesn't really matter."

"No, I guess not." Widow Pevensie agreed, settling back down into her chair while Susan and Lucy took to helping the bear get some of the snow out of his fur.

In some spots where the icy-sleet was particularly stubborn, clinging to the poor bear's fur as intensely as a parasite, the two sisters had no other way of helping him apart from literally beating it with a broom stick. They tried to be careful and not to cause him any serious pain in their efforts to deliver him from cold, but once or twice the blows hurt him and the bear groaned or growled.

"We're dreadfully sorry, Mister Bear." said Susan with a heavy sigh when they'd finally finished and were all laying down in front of the warm fireplace together-the cot having been moved aside from the hearth for the night.

"It's alright." He assured them, allowing Lucy to even climb up onto his now-warm back and rest on it as thought it was a giant mattress.

"She's likely to fall asleep up there, Mister Bear." Even though Lucy had originally had every intention of asking 'the brother' lots of questions, her sudden fatigue and the over-all shock of him being a bear, had taken its toll on her so that her youthful eye-lids refused to stay open.

"That's fine." The bear assured Susan, looking at her in a strange, longing sort of way. "She's so little up there that I can hardly even feel her."

"Thank you. That is very good of you, Mister Bear." It was apparent that Susan was trying to show the bear the same sort of respect and graciousness that she would bestow on any visitor, but obviously it was somewhat awkward for some reason. It wasn't that she wasn't at ease with talking animals; she knew plenty of them by name and face, it was that something about _this_ bear didn't seem quite right. Almost as if he wasn't really supposed to be one-but of course, that had to be pure nonsense.

"Please call me Peter." He told her, a very hopeful expression coming onto his face as he was saying it.

"Isn't that a rather unusual name for a bear?" Susan blurted out without thinking.

"Well, yes, actually, I think you're right." His agreeing with her only added to her feelings of discomfort.

"You have a human name, then." She realized, not sure of what exactly it implied.

"Yes," He looked a little saddened now. "I do."

Feeling it was rather rude to pester a guest or bring up a gloomy subject to them, Susan decided to change her approach to a more cheerful one. "Do you come from very far, Mister Be-I mean, Peter?"

Snoring both from Widow Pevensie's chair and from the top of the bear's back suddenly alerted them to the fact that they were the only two left awake. They laughed it off rather good naturedly, all things considered, and went on with their conversation.

"Quite." he nodded his head, making the thick, shaggy black fur shake up and down rapidly. "I used to live at Narnia's capitol in the east."

"Did you?" Susan's eyebrows went up in surprise. That really was a very long way; their cottage was in the far west. "So you were very close to the castle, Cair Paravel?"

A little laugh rumbled within his great bear-chest. "Close? I lived _in_ it."

"They let a _bear_ live with the royal family in the greatest castle of all Narnia?" Susan gasped incredulously.

"Of course not!" He snorted, seeming rather put-out now.

Susan's own face seemed withdrawn, even a little hurt. "It was only a question."

"I mean, we-they-don't really have anything against bears, but in general, they don't live in the castle." He amended, actually daring to stick his nose out and nudge her arm apologetically.

Reassured, Susan asked, "But, if that's the case, what were _you_ doing there?"

The bear sighed. "It's a long story, and I can't tell you about it now, but I will say this: the real question is not what I was doing there in the first place. Actually, I think if you knew the whole truth of the matter, you'd ask why I am not still there."

"I think I ought to get Lucy to her real bed for the night." Susan said a bit shakily, feeling a bit of unexplained tension building up between them as she reached up to take Lucy off his back without waking her up.

The bear complied with Susan's efforts and bent down a little to make it a bit easier for her. "Does that help?"

"Yes, thank you, Peter." Susan said softly, gently taking a still sleeping-in spite of standing upright-Lucy by the hand to lead her over to their bed.

"Would you say that again one more time?" He asked in a way that made Susan think once again that if he wasn't a bear, he would have been blushing.

"Thank you?" Susan was happy to humour him, strange as his tastes in flattery might be.

"No," He laughed; such a deep rumbling chuckle that if she wasn't already sure he was reasonably safe, Susan might have been scared. "I meant when you said my name."

"It's not the first time I said it." Susan defended herself, her own cheeks feeling flushed for some odd reason.

"I know." His eyes blinked twice slowly.

"Then why-"

"I just like hearing you say it." He admitted, suddenly speaking as if his saying something like that to her when they had only just met was the most natural thing in the world.

If he wasn't a bear, I'd swear he was trying to flirt with me, Susan thought-knowing how laughable the whole thing really was.

He didn't blink anymore, just waited, expecting her to say his name again.

"Goodnight, Peter." She said finally.

It was good enough for him. The bear spent the rest of the night blissfully dozing by the fire and it cannot be said for sure that at least some of the dreams he had did not include the beautiful Susan White Pevensie.

Meanwhile, Lucy had dreams of her own that night. Once again, she perceived, in her vision, the boy who had been watching over them at the gorge. The one who, it seemed, had a bear for a brother. It never occurred to Lucy to think that he had been insane or merely telling lies; she would have hated it if anyone ever thought either of those two options about her and refused to be skeptical without reason.

The boy was standing by the bed again, watching her sleep. He didn't shake her to wake her up, but he did touch her arm anyway to lift it up and place a wide heavy-but soft-paper parcel under it. Then, seeming pleased with himself, he gave the arm a gentle tap as if to bid her goodbye still without attempting to wake her up or speak to her.

The next thing Lucy knew, the dream was over, her eyes were open, and she could still feel the light pressure of the paper parcel resting on the side of her waist under her arm. Morning itself had come and woken her up from slumber. Beside her, Susan still dozed (she was dreaming about darning a basket full of socks).

"Susan, wake up." Lucy nudged her sister with her knee.

"Certainly, Lu." Susan muttered, still asleep and dreaming (now Lucy was sitting beside her asking for a different coloured patch at the heel of one of the socks). "Whatever you like."

"Susan!" She nudged her a little harder, taping the paper parcel at the same time as if to reassure herself that it would not disappear as soon as Susan opened her eyes-leaving Lucy with nothing more than a cranky sister for all her trouble.

"What is it, Lucy?" Susan yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she sat up in the bed.

"Last night I had a dream about that boy from the gorge." Lucy explained so quickly that it was a miracle her words did not all end up as one big jumble of sounds. "He left this under my arm...and it's still here!"

Susan was just about to tell her that it was pure nonsense and not to worry about it when the paper parcel was shoved onto her lap. "Oh!"

"What do you think it is?" Lucy asked, her voice very nearly a whisper now.

"I guess we'll find out." Susan turned the parcel over and slowly and delicately picked at the slightly frayed pale-brown string that held the paper closed.

This was too much for Lucy who had had a hard enough time waiting for Susan to wake up properly before discovering the contents of the parcel. She reached over and tore the paper down the middle, paying no mind to the strings.

"Lucy!" Susan protested before curiosity over-came what she would have otherwise thought to be a well-deserved scolding. Something soft and dark and warm stuck out of the tear in the paper. "I say, fur!"

It just so happened that Lucy had a real love for the smell and feel of fur-that was one of the reasons she had enjoyed resting on the bear's back the night before-and she simply had to run her fingers along the parcel's lovely contents. She pushed down the string so she could pull it all the way out. Lucy now held, in her lap, two splendid winter-coats made of fur; one just the right size for Susan to wear and-the smaller one-just right for herself. The boy had given them the fur coats they could not afford.

Her head reeling from bemusement and constant surprise, Susan stood up from the bed, her knees knocking together clumsily, moving in such a manner that did not seem very much like her at all.

Not many paces later, she was face-to-face with the bear who seemed even bigger now that the cottage wasn't lit only by the fire's glow. "Good morning, Susan."

"I suppose you would like to be on your way then?" said Susan, suddenly getting the idea in her head that perhaps as soon as the bear left, things would go back to normal.

"I will go out now if you would open the door for me," The bear told her. "But if it wouldn't be too great a burden, I should very much like to come back again tonight."

"I-" Susan's voice failed her.

"It's very cold out at night, you know." The bear looked so lost and piteous!

"Yes, I think that would be all right." How could she refuse him when her mind kept playing the image of the poor thing covered in ice and snow shivering in the moonlight?

"Good. It was very nice meeting you, Susan White." He said, one eye blinking (no, she realized, _winking_ at her). He noticed Lucy standing a few feet away holding the fur coats his brother had left for them. "You too, Rose Lucy."

Widow Pevensie had gone for an early morning stroll because it had turned out to be a warmer winter morning than those proceeding it and she didn't know when she would get the chance again.

"Goodbye, bear." Lucy actually gave him a hug from the side.

"Peter." He corrected the littler sister, though in a less serious tone than he had used on Susan the night before.

With that, Susan lifted the latch, and the bear who called himself Peter bounded away from the clearing of their cottage into the dense forest until he was completely out of sight.


	4. Brothers

That night, the bear returned. Of course, they had anticipated this, so they hadn't even bothered latching the door until he arrived. He came in, thanked them with the most lovely manners (almost courtly, Susan thought; wondering how and where a bear-even a talking one-could have learned such fine etiquette), and rested in front of the fire.

This time, Lucy wasn't sleepy so she took it upon herself to sit beside him and ask questions. "Peter, is your brother really a fairy who watches over good children?"

The bear looked rather amused at this; he raised a soft black eyebrow at Lucy and answered, "Something like that. So you _have_ met Edmund, then?"

"Edmund?" Lucy echoed, feeling strangely and pleasantly surprised upon learning the boy's name. "Is that what he's called?"

"Yes." The bear said very monosyllabically.

Lucy didn't think it was because he didn't like talking about his brother per say so much as it seemed to be that he didn't like answering questions regarding himself and his family-she thought this to be quite a shame because she did have so many of them.

Finishing polishing a copper kettle so brightly that it shone like gold, filling it with water, and then setting it on the little iron stove in the far kitchen-corner of the cottage, Susan wiped her damp, slightly sweaty palms off on the front of an old apron hanging from a partially rusted hook on the wall. Then, she turned her attention to the bear-Widow Pevensie was already asleep in her cot which had been moved closer to the stove to make up for the fact that the bear had taken the hearth-and Lucy.

"What's that you were talking about?" Susan asked, trying to be friendly with out prying. Speaking to Lucy was easy-she knew how to talk to her little sister without any awkwardness-but the bear-Peter-was another matter entirely.

"Su, Peter's brother is the boy who made sure we didn't fall into the gorge the night we slept in the forest." Lucy told her cheerfully, looking over at the bear as if expecting him to back her up.

Susan didn't believe a word of it. "Don't be so silly, Lucy, a bear cannot have a human brother."

"I'm not like most bears." said the bear, looking at them as if longing to tell them something he was forced to hold back for the time being.

"Still-" Susan's practicality would take none of this nonsense.

"And who said he was completely human anyway?" The bear showed his teeth in a very grim fashion but not meanly, only as if he was trying to make a point. "Surely you noticed there was something about him that was different from you and Lucy, even if you only met him that one time at the gorge."

"Oh, was he a bear once before he was turned into a human by some sort of enchantment?" She blurted out in the sort of voice people tend to use when they are holding back a laugh at someone else's expense. Susan didn't really believe in enchantments.

"Are you making fun of me?" The bear demanded, seeming quite grumpy now.

"Only a little." Susan confessed, at least having the decency to be a bit ashamed. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, honest I didn't."

"It's alright, my feelings can take much more trouble than _that_." The bear assured her good-naturedly, his face appearing to soften a great deal.

It was Lucy who figured it out first; not about the brother-she still was unsure as to what exactly _he_ was-but something about their visiting black bear. "You weren't always a bear, were you? That's what Edmund meant when he said you were different, isn't it?"

Clever girl! Thought the bear-glancing over at Lucy, I knew right away that little girl just _knew_ things about people! If only Susan could figure it out, too, I know she wont just take her little sister's word for it.

When he didn't answer, Lucy took it as a sign that he meant yes and was either too sad to speak of it, or else that it was forbidden for some reason. Susan, on the other hand, took this as the bear not wanting to hurt Lucy's feelings but not telling lies either; of course he was a bear! He had some humanish things about his personality that were a bit surprising in their own way, but that didn't make him an enchanted anything.

And that was the way it went all winter; the mystery of the bear who's brother might just be the fairy who watches over good children never lessening. Each night, the bear would come, and then in the morning, Susan would let him out and expect his return in the late evening. Many nights, Lucy dreamt-though she began to wonder if they could really be called dreams and not something else when their effects always lasted long after she'd woken up-about the bear's brother, Edmund. He rarely spoke to her but sometimes she managed to say a few things to him here and there and get something like a half-answer. Mostly, he came as it to check on her, to make sure she was alright, and often, to leave things the family was in need of.

When Widow Pevensie could not afford new material to make longer-skirted dresses for her two growing girls (especially Lucy who was shooting up like a spout that winter), there was a paper parcel stuffed with fine silk brocade-green for Susan and blue for Lucy-left in the middle of the bed, sandwiched between the two sisters. It was far, far, finer than any cloth the Widow or Susan (who helped make the dresses) had ever used-or even imagined using-before. When the Widow confided in Susan, because she was the eldest, that she could not afford to pay back some money she had borrowed from a farmer a few years ago and feared their cottage would be taken away from them, a little purse filled with gold coins-enough to pay a king's ransom-were left in Lucy's hand while she slept.

Susan did not believe Lucy about the boy from the gorge doing all of this-simply put, she still didn't believe completely in his existence-and thought it must be the bear somehow, as he was the only new friend they had made recently but she was stumped as to how a bear could have such wealth and how he would get it in their beds without waking either of them.

Once, after their mother announced that they were out of wheat to make bread with and they were certain a jar of it would appear in their bed by the morning, they tried to force themselves to stay awake all night and see what would happen. Whenever they felt sleepy, they would pinch each other and force themselves to whisper back and forth, making the conversation as amusing as possible to avoid letting their eye-lids close on them. Still, eventually they slept, at least for a minute, and in that minute, Edmund arrived and left the jar of wheat. For all their efforts, they got nothing but weary, droopy eye-lids the next day.

The morning before the last night of winter, as the bear-Peter-was leaving the cottage and saying good-bye to Susan and Lucy as he did every day before going off into the forest, he felt a pang of deep sadness that would not go away. They didn't know it yet, but that up-coming night would be the last he would spend with them that year. He'd needed their help in the winter, and in return for their kindness, his brother had helped them, but now that the springtime was coming to western Narnia, it would all have to end.

Wandering about the forest on his four paws, a feeling he could never learn to like, or even get truly used to, the bear sighed deeply, stopped at the edge of the gorge where the girls would have perished if not for his brother, and said, "Edmund, I know you are here."

Peering out from behind a near-by tree, came the same pale boyish face that Lucy had seen in her dreams so many nights that winter. He wore a ice-blue tunic and something like brown shoulder-armour. "Hullo, Peter."

"Edmund." He looked down at the river at the bottom the gorge; it seemed quieter than usual for some reason.

"You've nearly made it through another winter."

The bear nodded and shuddered to himself.

"We-" Edmund paused for a moment. "What's the matter?"

"I don't want to leave them, Ed." The bear admitted dejectedly.

"Maybe you can stay with them again next winter." Edmund tried to comfort him, reaching over and lightly touching the very tips of the fur on the bear's ears awkwardly.

"If there _is_ one." said the bear gravely, looking so broken-hearted that Edmund half wanted to weep for him. "For me, I mean."

"He wont get you." Edmund insisted boldly, sounding a little too convinced of that even for the bear's taste, almost like a perfect lie, though he didn't mean to hurt him-though he was only trying to help.

"Give my love to everyone if he does, okay?" The bear commanded in a not-so-commanding tone of voice. "Say something especially nice to Trumpkin for defending me all this time, and taking you in, he's been wonderful."

"You'll be fine." Edmund tried to make his voice strong, but it wavered a little anyway. "You always were before. We go through this _every_ spring."

"You never know, Ed." The bear's tone was so flat and grave that it bore very little resemblance to the joyful beast who had slept in the hearth of the girls' cottage all those nights, laughing and playing with them when he got over his cold way of avoiding questions.

"Oh and...you will keep looking after the girls even if..." The bear could not bring himself to forget them in all of this.

"Of course."

"I say, Edmund, did you notice how pretty the elder one is?"

This expression on the bear's face was completely new and unfamiliar to his brother but he could still guess exactly what it was if he had to. "Don't tell me you've already gone and fallen in love with her in just these few winter-months."

The bear didn't deny it but he did stick up for himself a little. "All I said was that she was pretty."

"I know what you _said_." Edmund laughed, almost merrily. "But I'm your brother, I can tell when you're different."

The bear laughed now, too, motioning down at his paws. "Well it isn't very hard to see a difference _now_ , is it?"

"Come on," His brother's tone was more gentle after he said that. "we'd better get going before that awful brute, Nikabrik, catches us and puts an end to it his own way."

The bear shivered and shuddered rather violently at the thought. "Thanks be to the Lion that he isn't as good a swordsman or archer as Trumpkin; I'd have been long dead if he was."

"The wicked _thing_!" Edmund agreed, very nearly stomping his foot on the ground as he said it. "If only he'd have a turn around. The red dwarfs don't want you dead, and even some of Nikabrik's own black-dwarfs have changed sides."

They began to walk faster and faster as they continued their conversation, until Edmund could not keep up and ended up having to climb onto his brother's back so that they could make better time.

"You know he'll never give up until..." the bear's voice trailed off wearily and he moved just a very little bit slower until he got his second wind and could speed up again.

Edmund sighed, he knew his brother was right. Nikabrik had been the start of all this, it had been his greed that nearly destroyed them, and he would not let there be an end to it until he had gotten what he wanted, or else, died. And the only one who's hand-or paw, rather-could kill this dwarf and end the curse for ever, could not bring himself do to so. He needed a real reason to do it, more than freedom, more than the royal treasury. Edmund only wondered what the reason would be and if they could keep this up until it finally arrived. Or maybe Peter was right and by next winter, he, Edmund, wouldn't have a brother anymore.


	5. Dwarf

It was the first day of spring and Lucy could see little circle-shaped patches of green grass sticking out from the melting snow closest to the trees and the bushes. She couldn't help but think that very soon the bear, who had been so cold and had needed shelter, would start to feel over-burdened by his heavy coat of fur. More sobering still was the notion that he was going away and they didn't know for how long. Both girls stood before him wearing all the finery his brother had provided for them, including the fur coats, though they wouldn't be needing them anymore in a couple of weeks when the forest was all thawed.

"You will come back, wont you?" Lucy asked, nearly begging, stroking the side of his soft neck very sadly.

"Perhaps next winter, if I can." He told her, gently nudging the little girl in a comforting fashion.

"Goodbye, Peter." Her lower lip trembled and he knew she was about to start crying; the five tears-three from one eye, two from the other-that rolled down her cheeks proved his assumption right. If he'd had human hands rather than bear-paws, he would have clasped her wrists comfortingly and likely even given her a proper goodbye-embrace, but of course he couldn't, so he didn't.

Susan, being a little older and wiser than her sister, knew to bite her lip to keep the trembling at bay until she gained control of herself again and could speak relatively freely. "Where are you going, then, Peter?"

"Away where _he_ cannot get me." sighed the bear, allowing himself to tell as much as he could manage, for once not worrying about burdening the girls he had grown to care for-and even love-so deeply. "He does not often come above ground in the winter."

"Who do you mean?" Susan asked him, taking a step closer to him while Lucy stroked the fur on the top of his head as if by continuing to make contact with him, she could keep him with them longer.

"Is it someone very bad?" Lucy's voice was small and rather pale-sounding when she said this, very much disliking the thought of anything wicked going after their friend.

The bear shook his head, not in disagreement but in a more mournful sort of way. "Let's just say I would not underestimate him...at least, not again."

"Is it a hunter?" Susan let out a gasp thinking she had perhaps stumbled upon the answer at last. Of course, it would all make perfect sense. A wicked hunter willing to kill not only the dumb beasts, but also the talking ones, thus driving their poor bear, their dear winter-friend, to insanity and, of course, fear.

He knew the black dwarf he was trying to protect himself from was hardly the sort of hunter Susan had in mind, but he replied, "You could call him that."

Lucy whimpered and proceeded to burry her face in his fur.

"Be careful." said Susan, giving the bear such a concerned-even loving-look that he thought his heart would break because he knew he could never have her. At least, not his in current form he couldn't. There was a time, though it seemed so very long ago now, and perhaps it was, when he might have had something worth offering her.

"I will be." He couldn't promise her he would be back the next winter, but he could promise her that. He knew about keeping safe. After all, yesterday had been practice for that. Both he and his brother, Edmund, had traveled over their route to make sure they were safe. In all honestly, it might have been safer for Peter-the bear-to have skipped this last night of winter with the girls and have stayed put, but he had not been able to bring himself to do so.

With that, Susan bent down and hugged the bear's neck from the opposite side of where Lucy was still stroking his fur and pressing up against him. "Goodbye then, my bear."

 _My_ bear, she had called him 'my bear' not even _our_ bear; he meant something to her now though he wasn't sure what, nor was he sure he could ever content himself with it on its own.

Finally succeeding in prying Lucy away from the bear's side, Susan put her arm around her sister and sighed deeply as the beast who'd slept by their fireplace all winter bounded away into the forest. This time though, he looked back and they both could have sworn they saw small, glittering tears in his large blue eyes that were anything but bear-like.

"I wish he could've stayed for ever." Lucy whispered, pulling away from her sister just slightly to quickly wipe her running nose on the sleeve of her beautiful winter-coat.

For once, Susan did not scold her sister for soiling one of the best pieces of clothing they owned; in fact, it is possible that she didn't even notice her doing it.

"Me too." The tears she had been holding back didn't fall but Lucy still knew they were there, just like she knew when it was windy out, because she could see their effects.

She could still see them a few days later when Susan sat by the embers of the dying fire on a surprisingly cold afternoon for springtime, even for the Lantern Waste which had, at times, been rather famous (or infamous depending on how you looked at it) for it's longer-lasting cold-snaps. Susan was-though she would have never admitted it-rather listless, unable to shake the feeling that something-someone?-was missing. Oddly enough, if she had been willing to submit herself to her feelings without worrying about how childish confessing them would make her appear, she might have learned that Lucy was feeling a little lost herself.

Edmund, whom Lucy now rarely called in her thoughts 'the fairy who watches over good children' anymore because she had a real name for him, hadn't appeared either in her dreams, or-as she actually would have preferred because it would have been less confusing-in reality. He hadn't come since the bear left and Lucy had gotten the sort of idea, that where ever Peter had gone, his brother had gone, too. He hadn't left them in wanting; quite the contrary, he had left grains and fabrics enough to last well into the next year before going away. Still, Lucy, not being quite as desperate to seem very grown up as her sister did, allowed herself to realize that it wasn't the things she would have missed even if they had been left with nothing. It was him. He was interesting, there was so much she wanted to know about him. She wanted even, if it were possible, to make a sort of friend-or playmate-of him. In fact, strange as it might sound to someone who is very sensible-minded, she already fancied them to be sort of companions. And she went on missing her 'friend'.

The embers died away completely and Widow Pevensie-seated a few inches away from the girls, fixing a seam Lucy had torn in one of the brocade dresses-looked over at her girls. They seemed to quiet and distant, if not exactly sad, in lacking. Because she had never been a pushy sort of mother, the kind who demanded to be told everything her children did and why, she didn't ask them what was wrong but she did ask if they wouldn't mind going into the forest to get some more firewood.

Lucy was instantly reminded of her original love of the forest and for a good many moments forgot almost entirely about the bear and his brother, giving herself up to sheer excitement and agreeing to go. Susan consented to go, too, but she showed little to no enthusiasm for it.

"We will not leave each other." Susan reached for her little sister's hand, forcing a weak smile.

"Never so long as we live in this world-until the day we pass on into Aslan's country." Lucy allowed her hand to be taken and gave her elder sister's fingers a light squeeze.

"What one has, she must share with the other." Widow Pevensie said out of her old habit.

"We do." Susan's tone was low, nearly a whisper.

It was true, even when they didn't realize it, that they shared everything; even their yearning for the bear to return. Or at least, to be safe, where ever he was.

The two sisters traveled through the forest gathering firewood. Or rather, Susan was the one actually carrying the bundles they'd collected while Lucy skipped ahead, almost merrily-the beauty of the day, the scent of the wild flowers, the soft velvet-likeness of the emerald green moss, the warmth of the sun, the tenderness of the little breezes, all having their healing, comforting affects on her.

Just two mere stone throws away from where Lucy bent down to pluck a small daisy as yellow as a sunflower and Susan gave in and submitted herself to waiting for her to do it before going on, there came a mournful shriek of horror and pain.

"What was that?" Susan wondered aloud, so startled that she almost dropped the firewood in her arms and had to tighten her grip to avoid letting some of the smaller pieces fall to the ground.

Lucy wandered ahead to investigate while Susan carefully placed the wood down on a large worn-looking, half-rotted stump before following just behind her.

What they saw when they finally reached the source of the cries, was a small, stocky, dour-faced black dwarf. His longish, black-and-pepper-gray beard was stuck in the middle of a partly-cut tree, wrapped slightly around the edge of what was either a broken wedge or else, an ax-head split from its handle.

"Don't just stand there with your mouths hanging open!" Snapped the dwarf as soon as he spotted the girls. Usually, he was not at all the sort of person who liked-or even put up with-children, and he already liked Susan and Lucy just about as much as he liked fleas living in his beard due to poor hygiene, but clearly, he was not going to get freed without someone's help.

Susan stood still for a moment longer as if waiting-even expecting-the dwarf to check his tongue and amend his rude tone with a more mannerly plea. He, however, did not apologize. He only glared and muttered something about 'daft idiot man-cubs'.

Before Susan could give him a good what-for, Lucy took a step closer to the tree his beard was caught in and said, "What happened?"

"None of your business, you stupid girl!" huffed the dwarf, his glare hardening so much that if it was a rock, it could have shattered window-glass up to six-inches thick. "It's of no concern to you."

"Mind your tongue, sir!" Susan demanded tersely, a glare of her own working its way into her facial expression. "Speaking so is no way to get yourself out of whatever trouble-"

"Why _does_ he love _you_?" The dwarf rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw together tightly for a moment before going on. "Must have a thing for brats with dreadful voices that go right through a fellow."

"What are you talking about?" She was a little taken aback at this, wondering where the mad little man came up with these strange little speeches. It would have been odd at any rate, but the strange feeling that he wasn't senile-that he was serious-began to creep into Susan's mind, sensible as it was. Almost as though, deep down, she knew the dwarf, unpleasant though he was, was speaking the truth, that he knew someone who really did love her. "Who-"

"Oh, do shut up." growled the dwarf, swinging his fist in a sort of furious threatening fashion, still not willing to behave civilly to the 'brats' even though he needed them. "I will tell you how I got caught in this mess: I got into a beastly argument with this nasty tree here, its dryad wished to take some of the few, meager possessions I own, and when I tried to protest, it rudely captured my beard and proceeded to go to sleep."

"Lucy, I don't think this dwarf's telling a half-truth worth listening to." Susan whispered in her little sister's ear, stepping forward just slightly to do so, hoping the dwarf did not hear what she was saying. "He may well have fought with the tree, but he's left out any mention of trying to kill it with whatever he's gotten jammed into the trunk."

"But we can't just leave him." Lucy whispered back, feeling pity for the dwarf even if he was as horrid as he seemed. "He'll never get out with his beard like that."

"What are you two gooses chattering about?" The dwarf sneered angrily. "Help me!"

"Hold on a moment." Susan sighed, willing to help him, if not because of her gentle nature, at least to be rid of him from their sight. "Perhaps we can pull it out."

"I'd have gotten it free long before you came if it could be gotten out by pulling." He said in a dry voice that, if nothing else, was at least level-toned now.

"He's right, Susan." Lucy had to agree. "It's really stuck in there."

He muttered something that was probably not at all good for proper young ladies ears if spoken loud enough to be understood as anything other than a mumble.

"Hold still, perhaps if we can untangle it-" Susan started, reaching her fingers over to the caught end of his unpleasantly coarse beard only to get slapped away by the dwarf's ragged-looking fingernails for all her trouble.

"Dim-wit!" said the dwarf. "You'll do no good that way other than to break off my beautiful silver hairs all unevenly."

It isn't silver and there's nothing 'beautiful' about it, Susan thought-being tactful enough not speak her mind, If you were any other kind of creature, you might be glad enough of losing the thing.

Dwarfs were known for being proud of their beards, but this one, it seemed, might be better off _without_ the presumably waist-length mess hanging from his chin.

"I'll go and get someone." Lucy decided, lifting up the edge of her skirt as if she was going to curtsey so that she could turn on her heel and go as fast as possible to get help.

"Is that the best you can do?" The dwarf demanded, shaking his hand as if he was going to give her a smack but she was too far away for it to actually make contact. "You two troublesome morons are already too much for me. Come up with something better!"

Susan sighed and-because there was nothing else for it-reached into her smock pocket for a little pair of shinny new scissors she kept on hand. She was a little sorry to have to use it on the dwarf's nasty facial hair, as it was one of the gifts that had been left in the bed for them during the winter and had come even with it's own little copper sheath as though it were a knife or a sword rather than a pair of scissors. They may have even been made of solid silver-it wouldn't have been surprising because they were heavy enough for that. Still, what else could she do but snap them open and closed along the edge of the thick, ugly beard and hope for the best?

When he was freed, rather than thank the girls or even bother to attempt to apologize for his rude words towards them, the dwarf let out a, "Hmmf!" of contempt and didn't even so much as glance their way. He scowled down at his slightly-shortened beard with a fierce expression that strongly suggested he blamed _them_ for it. Then, still not even looking at them, he reached down near the tree's roots to where a little burlap sack was, gave it a good tug until it came loose-the tree, who's dryad must have been elderly, let out a groan, but did nothing more-and swung it over his shoulder.


	6. Unicorn

It was definitely getting warmer out, Edmund decided as he blinked to clear his tired, somewhat-glazed eyes and sat up straighter on his brother's back. Having a bear for a brother meant that very often, as long as you had him with you, you didn't really need a mount, but he still missed his old steed, Phillip, from time to time.

Phillip had been a fine copper-coloured horse with a coat twice as splendid as a shinny new penny. What was more, he was one of the few talking horses who would allow a rider on his back. In Narnia, the talking beasts had free will and were given their own choices-with the exception of battles where it was required that all talking creatures play whatever part they physically could. Most talking horses would have been too proud to carry a human or a human-like creature on their backs when there was no great need present; some made exceptions for nobles, saying they were honoured to carry a great leader, but those sort of horses had become quite rare by the time Edmund was old enough to learn to ride. But then Phillip had come along; he wasn't a stallion and being a very tame sort of gelding, had no objections to carrying the little dark-haired boy around from time to time, he even sort of liked it, and they became friends. Good old Phillip was only _one_ of the friends Edmund and Peter had been forced to leave behind-or even lost to death-in their lifetimes.

Even though Edmund hadn't verbalized his complaint about the heat, Peter must have guessed it anyway because he said, "Think how much worse it is for _me_ , Ed. With all this fur and carrying you..."

"You don't need to carry me anymore." Edmund pointed out, noticing that their formerly urgent pace had been slowed down to nothing but a mere fast-walk. "I can probably keep up now."

Peter considered this. If an enemy made a sudden appearance-or attack, which would be worse-and Edmund wasn't on his back at the time, they probably wouldn't make as speedy a get-away as they ought to and he _had_ promised Susan he would be safe-he'd sworn off needless risks. On the other hand, it would be easier to catch their breaths, so to speak, in this reasonably safe place for a while and then get back on their guard.

"Alright, Ed, get down." The bear lowered himself slightly to make it a shorter trip to the ground.

Edmund got down, landing hard on the soles of his boots onto the dry-neither dirt nor sand but something in-between-sort of ground and the two brothers kept on walking side by side for a while longer.

A faint, almost non-detectible if not for Peter's sharp bear-ears, crunch of a twig came from behind them; it could just be a small dumb animal, but it wasn't certain and they needed to be sure before they were convinced whatever it was, was not a threat.

A flash of an earth-coloured tunic small enough for a child-or dwarf, rather-and a red beard. The weather-beaten face behind it was familiar, Peter and Edmund felt their muscles relax in relief; it was only Trumpkin, he was on their side, a loyal subject, a friend. He was a red dwarf from the south-east of Narnia who had once been a sort of companion to Nikabrik before he'd become aware of his evil intentions. Thankfully, he was one of the few dwarfs who pledged themselves to Peter and the rest of the royal family, thus being completely unwilling to go up against them. Trumpkin was a protector, not a destroyer; having saved their lives on several occasions, he had certainly earned their unwavering trust.

"Hullo, DLF." Edmund said in an almost sing-song voice, DLF (Dear Little Friend) being a nickname he had come up with for Trumpkin many years ago when he'd whipped the startled dwarf's tush at fencing after he had implied that dear Ed, in spite of being royal, was of too tender of years to participate in sword-fighting.

"Good day, your majesty." Trumpkin bowed to Edmund and to his brother, the black bear.

"What news?" asked the bear, lifting a paw because he'd accidentally stepped on a slightly prickly thistle.

"I am afraid Nikabrik has...er... _discovered_ where you spent your winter." Trumpkin told him rather gravely, watching as the bear's whole face fell, clearly being very disappointed.

"The girls..." the bear borderline-stammered nervously.

"They're fine, your majesty." Trumpkin assured him with a firm nod of his head. "Don't worry yourself about that."

"How much does he know about them?" Edmund put in his question carefully, watching his brother's expression darken with dread that he couldn't shake off as easily as he would have liked.

"A lot." Trumpkin would almost have liked to lie about that, if it would have put Peter at ease, but he was too honest and loyal a creature to ever to tell a falsehood to a royal. "I have it from a reliable source that several of the dryads-the ones on our side anyway-saw him speaking with them after getting himself in a rather..." -he actually had to hold back a gruff sort of chuckle here- "...tight situation fighting with an elderly dryad." he told them about how the girls had helped Nikabrik-for of course, he was the rude dwarf Susan and Lucy had met in the forest when gathering firewood-escape by cutting off part of his beard.

"I don't like this one bit, Trumpkin." Edmund had to say, shaking his head. "I'm sure Peter doesn't, either."

Understanding what they were fretting over, Trumpkin told them, "He may know a lot about them," here he paused and turned to the bear. "and your involvement with them, Peter, but I don't believe he sees them as a threat anymore than he sees a fruit fly as one."

Peter let out a bear-snort, secretly feeling-as he always did when a truly animal sound came out of him involuntarily-a level of deep disgust over his loss of life as a non-beast.

"Supposing he does something to them just to spite Peter or else to get him to..." Edmund's voice trailed off and he gripped the sword hanging from his side-scabbard just a little tighter; little Lucy's face suddenly popping into his mind-he didn't want to see her get hurt. "...I don't know...but..."

"He's vain as a peacock, your majesty." Trumpkin reminded him, daring to put a hand on his elbow in what was probably meant to be a comforting gesture. "He's probably too embarrassed over his beard-if I know him at all, he must be-to bother your brother's girls."

"I can't go back next winter then, can I?" the bear realized, placing one paw on top of the other fidgetingly (if he'd had hands he probably would have cracked his knuckles). "It's not safe for them."

Trumpkin couldn't argue with that, it was just logic. Nikabrik wouldn't hurt Susan White and Rose Lucy now, not when Peter had already left them, but if he was to go back, there was no telling what he might to do to get his own way at long last.

"I can't _ever_ go back." the bear's voice was broken and trace-like now.

"I'll keep an eye on them, Pete." Edmund said sadly, knowing how hard it must be for his brother; he was hopelessly in love with the elder girl-there was no hiding that-and he positively adored the younger as any protective brother or father-like figure ought to, and yet he could never have them. They were unattainable because of his curse.

From the bushes, came a sneeze and a fair-haired boy about a year or so younger than Lucy, dressed in clothing that had once belonged to the royal family-they were a bit too big on him-but were now a little torn and patched with age and constant wear-and-tear.

"Eustace!" a girl leading a snow-white unicorn by a silver halter-bridle, stepped out from thicket.

"Ah, Jill and Eustace!" Trumpkin's eyes twinkled with amusement and even a bit of confusion as he noticed their somewhat-dirty states (Jill's cheeks were a bit soil-stained) and the fact that they had a unicorn with them now. "Pegs and pail-drums, where did you come across _that_?"

"We found him by a near-by camp of black dwarfs, possibly relatives of Nikabrik, though we aren't sure." Jill explained, reaching up to stroke the unicorn's soft ashen-coloured nose. "He isn't a _talking_ unicorn, I don't think, but they had him all tied up and there are some nasty whip-marks near his flanks."

Sure enough, when Edmund came closer to examine the creature (Peter would have liked to do so as well but he stayed his distance, worried that his bear-form would frighten the unicorn) he quickly spotted the deep welts, sharp lines like crimson thread embedded in a spotlessly white winter-parka.

"Jill wasn't about to leave without him." Eustace put in, probably to be helpful. "We thought we'd like to give him to Edmund for now, it might prove handy since Phillip was-" At Phillip's name, Edmund's face dropped and his eyes darkened with sadness so Eustace stopped mid-sentence, knowing he didn't really need to say or do anything more about it.

"I don't need-" Edmund started before Peter cut in saying that he really ought to accept the unicorn because he would be likely to have an easier time keeping him hidden than Jill or Eustace might.

"Not to mention it might be useful for riding out to check on the girls. I don't trust Nikabrik to keep his nasty hands off of them if he gets any inclination that it might benefit him somehow." The bear added quickly, wishing that he could have hands and feet and a body suited for riding out on the unicorn to see them again. To see Susan again, to tell her everything, to try and-it was useless thinking about it; it was hopeless, he had to give her up.

As soon as Edmund had taken the unicorn in hand, there was a sudden clamor just a little ways to their left and when they turned, they saw a small group of dwarfs, most of which were black dwarfs like Nikabrik, but a couple were red dwarfs like Trumpkin, only much angrier-looking. Lots of them held weapons, dwarf-sized swords and bows and arrows, all pointing at the bear, Jill, Edmund, Eustace, and Trumpkin.

The leader of them-a first cousin of Nikabrik-who was called Ginarrbrik, stood in front of the group with a furious frown in his eyebrows and a sneer on his lips.

Eustace looked a little frightened and took a step back closer to Jill who's mouth was slightly agape with nervousness, but Edmund made no motions indicating he had any intentions of backing down, he only stared right back at Ginarrbrik, not even blinking.

"What have we here?" Ginarrbrik's voice was high-pitched and wheezy, not at all like his cousin's deeper, dry tone, but nearly just as dangerous in its own way.

"Away with you now." Edmund ordered, taking his sword half-way out of its scabbard warningly. "You haven't got any right to go after my brother now, as he is. By all rights, if you had any sense, you'd help him. He ought to be ruling you."

"We don't want bears for kings." One dwarf said coldly.

"You know he's not really a bear, or at least, he _wasn't_." Jill said, reaching behind her to where she had a quiver of arrows behind her back.

"We don't want any fays for kings either!" Snapped the dwarf to the left of the first speaker.

"The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!" They all cried out in unison, the ones in the back shaking their weapons for emphasis.

"This is treason." Trumpkin warned them, hoping they would listen to him because he was a dwarf himself. "Don't you be going against Aslan now, you know perfectly well who he put in charge at the beginning of time!"

"We don't want any Aslan-Lions that are never there when they're needed!" The first dwarf who'd said they didn't want bears declared.

"If Aslan's so great and powerful, why is the one he intended to be a king, a high king over all of Narnia, still roaming about as a dumb beast?" Ginarrbrik coughed out meanly. "We want no kings!"

"The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!" The delusional group cried out all together again.

"What does that even _mean_?" Eustace crinkled his brow at them.

"It means, they don't care if we die or if Nikabrik dies-even if he's of their own kind and kin-they just want to be their own rulers." Jill explained putting an arrow on her bow-string and pointing it warningly at a dwarf carrying an ax, edging a little too close to the bear.

"Dumb from _you_ is just too much." the bear snarled at Ginarrbrik.

"Oh, a tough beast, aint ya?" A dwarf from the middle came forward. "We'll see how tough you are when we're eating you round our camp-fire as punishment for sending your people to steal our unicorn."

"You'll only get to him over my dead body." Edmund's sword came all the way out.

"And mine." Trumpkin added seriously, his own dwarf-sword in clear view.

"Thieves, that's all your are. Common dirty thieves meaning to pass themselves off as royalty." They jeered at them, a spear or two in the middle of the group being jerkily shaken or waved.

Jill snorted in a very unlady-like fashion, but considering the circumstances, it really couldn't be held against her. "Your unicorn indeed!" Her hands-still clinging to the arrow and the bow-string shuddered, not with fear, but with hard, cold anger. "He was a prisoner of war and our side has rescued him."

"How we use our beasts is our own business." Ginarrbrik's raspy voice hissed. "If you are our rulers, and let me tell you, sad lot that you are, you don't _look_ a thing like 'em," his fuzzy hoary eyebrows were raised up condescendingly at Eustace and Jill, who, unlike Edmund and the bear-and even Trumpkin, for that matter, had not had the luxury of semi-paced traveling and had been made hot and breathless and dirty too many times to count over the last day or so. "you wouldn't have a right to take your subjects pack-animals without compensation."

"I'll give you compensation." Trumpkin muttered under his breath, more than a little put-out with their vulgar tones and contradictory attitudes towards their monarchs.

Edmund laughed out loud, not a merry, happy laugh; rather, a half-forced, bitter, disbelieving one. "If the dwarfs are for the dwarfs and you think it's perfectly all right to go around taking things-no, don't look at me like that, I _know_ you do your own fair share of robbing, though you'll deny it and call it _raiding_ to our very faces-then you'll have no problem with us taking this poor creature away from you. If we're all equal and free, like savages."

One of the dwarfs, slightly taller than most, leaped up in front of the group, even elbowing Ginnarrbrik aside, and punched Edmund in the jaw so hard that the blow nearly knocked him over (it would have put him on the ground if had been a full-sized person and not a dwarf).

Jill let the arrow fly in his defense; the bear let out a roar. The arrow didn't kill the dwarf, only striking him in the upper arm, but it was enough to enrage the rest of the group and get them all shouting amongst themselves that they were 'under attack'. The unicorn panicked and reared, letting out a terrified whinny, but he didn't run away-perhaps he had grown attached to the young nobles and royals in the short time spent with them. At least, he knew they would treat him better than the dwarfs had.

Now the dwarfs were falling upon them and if not for Trumpkin's speedy aim and Jill's quick movements, they would have been out-numbered and the bear would have been reduced to a hearty camp-fire meal and a dwarfish-rug. Ginarrbrik fought hard-at first-but when the unicorn began to buck at the dwarfs that came close enough behind him and to spear any in the front with his beautiful, glistening horn and Edmund proved far handier with a sword than they'd expected-making the same mistake as Trumpkin once had but in a far, far more foolhardy way-he fled. A few others took off with him, back to their camp. Because 'the dwarfs for the dwarfs' lived like wandering gypsies, they would soon vanish seemingly without a trace. The others who hadn't gotten away they would leave for dead in the company of the bear, his brother, and their companions.

Edmund caught his breath and looked over at the bear who was panting after crushing two dwarfs with his heavy paws. There were tears in his eyes and thick, smelly sweat all over his fur-covered back. "You alright, Pete?"

"Yeah, I'm alright, a bit sore..." His voice was faint but the tone was still deep and bear-like. "What about you? The jaw...?"

"Not too bad, a little blood from where his fist struck my gums but other than that, I'm fine." Edmund assured him.

"How's the lady?" Trumpkin gave Jill a concerned glance. "No injuries?"

"Only a cut on my finger." She told them, her voice a little shaky. "I was stupid and grabbed one of my arrows the wrong way."

"Eustace?" They made sure he was okay, too.

"None of them got very close to me." Eustace had to admit. "Edmund got most of them and Jill with her arrows..."

"I haven't heard any whinnying." the bear realized, his eyes widening slightly. "Is the unicorn...?"

They all whipped their heads around at once, to the bear's right where the unicorn was laid out on the ground with an arrow in his beautiful snow-coloured side.

Jill started to weep, tears and snot staining her already rather worn bowstring. "Oh..."

Edmund bent down and put his head on the unicorn's body; he could hear breathing, the arrow hadn't gotten deep enough to kill him, at least, not yet. "He's still alive."

"Wait, look at the side he's got it on...weren't those dwarfs in the other direction?" Eustace sounded more than a little confused.

"Peter was on the other side-" Jill suddenly stumbled upon the answer. "-a dwarf or two must have been hiding in the thickets and we didn't see them, or else they just got away to that side before they'd been stripped of all their weapons!"

"Why would they shoot the unicorn instead of re-capturing it though?" Eustace wondered aloud.

"To spite us as likely as not." Trumpkin muttered angrily, feeling that his race were making horrid fools of themselves and only wondered when it would all end-and _how_ , for that matter.

"I think..." Jill had to wipe more tears away from her eyes. "I think...the unicorn was standing in the way of the real target..."

"Of course!" Edmund gasped, surprised he hadn't figured it out sooner. "The unicorn might have moved that way to block Peter."

"The brave thing!" cried Jill, completely inconsolable as she bent down lower to watch Edmund and Trumpkin gently remove the arrow from the splendid creature's coat and tear scraps of cloth to clot the bleeding. "He didn't even _know_ , he couldn't even talk and he still..."

"I think he'll be alright in the end," Trumpkin announced as the unicorn's breathing became less labored and an actual sound, no louder than a kitten's mew, worked it's way out of his throat. "We have good reason to believe he'll make a full recovery."

"Can he move and keep up with us?" the bear asked nervously.

"He should be able to, it wasn't deep enough to maim him." Trumpkin assured Peter. "Barely a limp, I think."

"Then as soon as he can move, I think we'd better get going, I shouldn't like to meet up with _more_ rebelling dwarfs." The bear shuddered as his brother climbed onto his back again and Jill took the unicorn's halter and helped him up onto his four hooves.


	7. Brook

The summer was going by quickly in a blaze of fiery-hot days and muggy, dampish nights for Susan and Lucy who had never been so thankful in their entire lives that their cottage was old and sort of drafty; it was their only source of coolness as they laid in their bed with all the covers kicked to the floor. They'd be shivering and huddling and wishing it did not exist when the weather turned cold again, but they were glad enough of it now.

It had been over a month since they'd helped the rude dwarf escape from the tree and they hadn't heard or seen anything of him since, nor did they expect to. Even Lucy, who had always taken it upon herself to make friends even with the sort of persons who seemed grumpy at first, didn't really miss him. She still missed Edmund, though.

One morning, when the air was much cooler and easier to deal with than it had been as if late, Lucy and Susan decided get up early and go fishing at a little brook in the forest that they were very familiar with (Susan would never let Lucy near any unfamiliar bodies of water as long as there was an inch of life in her; knowing well how dangerously curious Lucy could get at times). Their fishing rods were old-fashioned sturdy things that had been repaired countless times over the years and had been strung with new line that was so glossy it didn't at all match the beat up poles themselves. Gathering up these-as well as the bait, which Lucy carried in a bucket because Susan was none too keen on wiggly things that came from underground-they left the cottage hand in hand, saying goodbye to their mother in the usual way.

The walk was pleasant and they talked back and forth part of the way before becoming quieter and more dream-like in their movements, just drinking in the over-all niceness of the day as they walked in the lush green forest which seemed much too vibrant and alive for the hazy summertime of the year. At the brook itself, frogs and toads hopped around happily as if they hadn't a care in all the world and the fish, unaware of the danger two girls carrying fishing rods really posed to them, jumped up and down, riding the little wave-like currents. Further up though, there came a less peaceful sound-a mournful shriek and muttered cursing-all too familiar.

"Is it him again?" Lucy wondered aloud as she and her sister wandered closer to the crier.

"Sounds like him." said Susan grumpily, still rather put-out with the dwarf for being so rude to them the last time. If it really was him again, he'd had better show some manners!

Sure enough, there was the ugly, hound-faced, bitter black dwarf whom they had saved from the tree and its dryad a month ago. His beard was shorter from where Susan had cut it with her scissors but it was still long enough so that it had gotten tangled in his fishing line and apparently it had happened just when a large fish had taken hold the bait, having no intentions of letting go.

"Hullo there," Lucy cried out to him, trying to be friendly. "You don't want to go in the water do you?"

"Of course not you stupid-" he followed this with a parade of words too vulgar to include here.

Utterly appalled, Susan put her hands over her little sister's ears. "Beastly dwarf!"

"What are you standing around like that for?" He snapped as if he had done nothing wrong and they were doing nothing but standing by and watching him get taken into the water. "Help me before I'm pulled to my death!"

"I say we let the fish pull him in." Lucy whispered to Susan, only half-joking. "He wont get anything worse than a good dunking."

Susan would have been more willing to leave the dwarf with his beard caught in a tree than to leave him like this. He was little, even shorter than Lucy was, and the brook was deep. Also, his rod looked like it was made of a rather heavy sort of wood, it might pull him down. "We'll have to help him this time, too, wouldn't want him to panic and drown as likely as not."

"Darn good of you!" Shrieked the dwarf angrily as the fish gave another good yank, almost succeeding in getting Nikabrik's chin wet. "Now stop being such bothersome ninnies and help me!"

In a flash, Susan had her scissors out again and raced over to the dwarf, cutting off the middle of his beard along with the line. "There!"

Nikabrik was free now and the middle of his beard, the fish, the bait, and the fishing rod, were on the muddy bottom of the brook, leaving nothing but a series of dark ripples behind them.

"Are you alright?" Lucy asked politely, noticing that the dwarf looked as though he might cry.

"Of course I'm not alright, you moron!" He sneered, reaching down to pick up a sack hidden behind the rock he'd been seated on while fishing. "You horrible children have gone and disfigured me."

"You aren't very bright," Lucy folded her arms across her chest and pursed her lips slightly. "Susan's just saved your life, haven't you, Su?" she glanced over at her sister.

Susan nodded, arching her left eyebrow at the scowling little man. "A simple 'thank you' would suffice."

" _Thank you_?" he snarled incredulously as if he was a beast rather than a human-like creature. "For what? You'd already ruined my fine beard and now you've gone and cut off the best part! I shall not be able to show myself to any of my friends until it grows back and I'm salvaged from shame!"

"Oh, don't be silly," Lucy told him in the kind comforting tone Susan used to use on her when she was little and had broken a toy or torn a page in a book by accident, trying to sound reassuring. "It doesn't look that bad, I'm sure your friends wont mind half so much as you do." She would have put her hand on his shoulder if he'd looked a little less wild or if his face had softened just a bit.

"You idiot, you don't know anything!" The dwarf clutched his sack a little tighter now as if he was afraid they were going to jump on him and try to snatch it away. "And I'll be taking this since your oaf of a sister has gone and ruined mine, leaving it at the bottom of that accursed brook." with that, he ripped Lucy's fishing rod right out of her hands and stormed off, muttering to himself.

"Well, I never!" huffed Susan, her eyes flashing with resentment as the dwarf scurried away.

Lucy was staring down at her hands which were a little red and splintered from the way the wood had been ripped out of them. "He took my fishing rod."

A while later, as they were traveling home at sunset, Lucy happened to look over her shoulder back at the brook, not sure of what exactly it was she wanted to see-perhaps the dwarf coming back to apologize and return her fishing rod. What she actually saw though was far more surprising even than that would have been; there was a white unicorn bending down to drink from the brook and a dark-haired boy in a scarlet tunic-Edmund, Lucy was fairly certain-standing beside him, stroking the creature's beautiful white neck and whispering something in his ear.

She stopped walking and spun back around to get Susan's attention, squeezing her sister's wrist as hard as she could. "Susan!"

"What's the matter?"

"Su, it's Edmund, he's come back!"

"Who?" her brow crinkled and her eyes were wide with confusion.

"Peter's brother!" Lucy huffed, not because she was cross-just because she was impatient to go back to the brook and talk to him.

"Peter is a bear." Susan reminded her in an annoyingly grown-up tone of voice.

"Ooh!" Lucy quickly spun Susan around so that she faced the brook; surely, once she saw Edmund and the unicorn for herself, she would _have_ to believe. "Just look!"

"Look at what?" Susan seemed more puzzled than ever, blinking rapidly as if that would somehow help. "I don't see anything."

"But he's right over-" Lucy's voice stopped, she could see for herself now that he wasn't there anymore. He'd come back and now he was gone again before she had even gotten a chance to say hello and thank him for all the wonderful gifts he had left for them last winter.

"Come on, Lu, enough playing around." in a very no-nonsense sort of swift movement, Susan seized her little sister's hand again and started marching back towards the direction of the cottage. "We have to get home with the fish. Though we would have had more if that greedy dwarf hadn't taken your rod."

"But he was just right there." Lucy protested weakly, feeling what was almost a sharp ache of sadness in her ribs. Why wouldn't Susan believe her?

"The dwarf?" Susan fought back a yawn. "I know, and I'll tell mum-"

"No, not the dwarf!" cried Lucy, utterly distressed by this point. " _Edmund_!"

"Please, Lu, calm down and see reason." Susan told her as they came out of the edge of the forest and into the clearing their cottage was located in. "Peter is only a talking bear, a nice one, but a normal one. And he does _not_ have a fairy for a brother."

"But he _does_!" Lucy insisted, pulling her hand away sharply, hoping to alert her sister to the fact that she wasn't playing or making up a story for fun, that she was telling the truth, that it was a _real_ enchantment they had found themselves in the middle of.

"Lucy-Lu," she reached over and gently moved a lock of hair behind her sister's shoulder, bending down slightly so that they were eye-to-eye, Lucy still being shorter than her elder sister was even with all she'd grown that winter-although Widow Pevensie swore that one day she would shoot up and be just as tall, if not taller. "Look here, there is no magic afoot. There's only one very frightened poor bear whom we must be as kind to as possible to make him feel better if he comes back again next winter, alright?"

"But _Susan_ ," Lucy refused to back down until Susan stopped trying to sound like such a know-it-all grown-up. "you _saw_ the boy at the gorge that night and you _know_ Peter's different-"

"Lucy, sweetie, if you don't take our games less seriously, I'm afraid we'll have to stop playing so much." Susan sounded so much like their mother that Lucy almost wanted to smack her for it. She didn't want a mother right now, she wanted a sister, a friend, someone who would listen to her thoughts without calling them 'pretty stories' or 'funny games' or 'stuff and nonsense'.

"But don't you see what's happening?" Lucy exclaimed, much louder than she'd intended, though she didn't care a thing about volume right now. "There's some sort of-"

"Oh, do stop!" Susan rolled her eyes, taking her hand once again and refusing to let Lucy pull away (she did try but Susan's grip was too tight). "This has happened before: do you remember the time when you were four and you insisted you saw Aslan in the forest and that he wanted to talk to us? Remember how much you cried and got all worked up and-"

"Susan!" Lucy bawled, shaking her head furiously. "I _did_ see Aslan and he _did_ want to talk to us, don't you remember? Mum made you apologize to me!"

Susan winced; because of course she had completely forgotten that part of the story up until that very second. "Okay, bad example." her lips formed a thin, firm line on her face that Lucy knew to be final. "But I am right this time and that's that."

That night, as she laid in bed, Lucy was completely and utterly miserable. She hadn't wanted to get her mother involved in the argument (partially because she was a little scared her mother just might side with Susan and she wasn't sure she could handle that in her current state of mind) so she had told Widow Pevensie nothing at all and simply sighed and shrugged away any inquiries as to why she did everything so half-heartedly and barely even touched her supper. Now she just stared at the long dark wooden beams on the celing as they loomed above her, feeling hopelessly torn. She wanted to believe, she wanted to figure out the secret of the whole enchantment and perhaps even help somehow-if she could. But she also wanted her sister to take her seriously again and stop treating her like a toddler and that wasn't going to happen as long as she went on being adamant about how she really had seen Edmund and the unicorn at the brook. Still, she was too truthful to lie and say it was just a story she'd made up for fun, so there was nothing else for it but to be miserable and even to cry a little into her pillow when Susan's head was turned the other way.

A sudden tap at the windows snapped Lucy out of her gloomy thoughts and discouraged wonderings. Standing up and wandering over to it, she lifted the little brass hook that held them shut and peered out. Almost glowing with a pinkish-white gleam in the moonlight, were streams and streams of flower petals flying-not merely floating, but truly flying-about in an almost non-existent summer's night wind. Lucy knew at once what this had to be; they were not ordinary petals, but a dryad. The petals swirled around like a small dust storm, staying ever so close to Lucy and the window, until they settled in the shape of an outline of a woman.

Lucy's mouth hung open slightly, taken aback. She'd known dryads but she'd never really gotten much of a chance to speak to one personally, all by herself. Before now, the closest she had come to that was when her mother traded wool for apples from a fruit-tree dryad three or four summers ago. They were always around but they seemed to speak to humans less and less these days; which was why it was such a special treat for Lucy, who had already forgotten how sad she had been only a few seconds ago.

"Lucy..." the dryad's voice was soft and breezy like cool water bubbling up from a spring in the center of a tree. "Lucy...come..."

"Come where?" Lucy whispered, her eyes so wide they were big enough to reflect the beautiful full moon hanging in the dark sky over-head.

"I heard you and your sister talking in the forest...about the boy and the unicorn...you wanted to speak with him, right?"

"Well yes, of course." said Lucy, blinking three times in a row and forcing back a giggle as a little petal flew astray and touched her cheek as lightly as the wing of a butterfly.

"Then come...I know where he is...he's not gone away...not just yet..." The dryad's voice was so sweet, like candy from a traveling fair.

"Alright." Lucy whispered, stepping away from the window to grab her boots which were at the foot of the bed. "I'm coming, then."

She watched Susan carefully, a little frightened that she would see her leaving and put a stop to it, but she didn't stir, she only snored contently.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Lucy slipped the boots all the way onto her feet and started walking towards the door. It suddenly came to her that perhaps it would have been wiser to wait until she was outside of the cottage to put on the boots because they were creaking awfully loudly-at least in her perception-and Widow Pevensie might hear. She didn't hear and she didn't wake, not even when Lucy grunted slightly, lifting the door latch which felt strangely heavy, stepping out into the night air and the moonlight.


	8. Illusion

It is often a sad truth that quite frequently the most innocent, trusting, over-all light-hearted people will be taken advantage of; and if the dryad Lucy trusted and followed away from the cottage clearing back into the forest-which seemed such a very different place at night-had been on the wrong side, the poor girl would likely have been led right into a trap and there would have been an end to her. Thankfully, that was not the case and the dryad was on the right side, a good, honest, truly loyal Narnian who thought 'the dwarfs for the dwarfs' were mad little men and would have taken up a fight against them without a moment's hesitation. She only thought she would like to help the poor little girl who seemed so eager to meet Edmund; it had never occurred to her that perhaps it wasn't the smartest idea seeing as both brothers were trying to steer clear of Susan White and Rose Lucy so that no harm from Nikabrik or any of the other wayward dwarfs would befall them.

As if in a trace, Lucy trailed after the petals that hovered a few inches away from her nose, went a little ways away, and then flew back in the form of a little purple-pink cloud-like silhouette as it changed again and zigzagged in and out of the numerous trees they passed like a long pearly ribbon. They stopped and took the contour of a bird-like creature suspended above a low branch in clear few of the silvery moonlight spilling into this part of the forest in a way the sun never could. A few feet away was another silvery reflective object appearing thinner and line-like from a distance.

"I say," Lucy whispered, more to herself than to the dryad who remained in a sort of parody of a bird on its perch. "what is that sort of snaky thing?"

The dryad did not answer other than to let out a sound so nightingale-like that if she didn't know any better Lucy would have believed it really _was_ a nightingale.

"I guess I'll go and look..." Lucy decided, feeling strangely unafraid considering that this was the first time she had ever been so deep in the forest without supervision at night.

Whenever she and Susan had lost their way at night, Susan, being the practical older sister that she was, thought only of their safety and pretty much forbid any exploring. If more than an hour after sunset, they had not found their way home, Susan almost always made them go right to sleep. It wasn't that Lucy didn't love her sister or appreciate all that she did for her (Susan's good sense had, after all, kept both of them from breaking their necks countless times), but the notion that the world was not so dangerous, at least for this one night, was very alluring to a girl of Lucy's personality. So she pressed on through a few branches so thin that they could almost be considered twigs until she came to the 'snaky thing'. It was a little stream, not the same brook she and Susan had been at earlier that day, but a completely new place, one that if Lucy had seen before, she didn't remember. How beautiful it looked! All silver and blue and white with dozens of yellow fire-flies soaring above and around it. The sight nearly took her breath away so that she almost forgot even about the dryad who'd led her there and how she had come across this marvelous place.

Then she saw the unicorn, he was standing with his front hooves in the stream, his tail swishing back and forth contently as he tossed back his stunning mane. Less than a foot away, was Edmund in his scarlet tunic on his knees bending over the stream to splash some cool water on his face.

Lucy was so happy to see him that she actually felt her heart give a lunch of complete joy and excitement that kept her from crying out and rushing over to him right away. It was almost like being struck dumb; she just found she couldn't stop staring over at him unwittingly. He had been something amusing and startling (in a good way) when he'd visited her dreams and left the gifts, and on the rare occasions when he would actually speak with her before leaving, but in this place and this time he seemed much more wonderful. The words-though Lucy secretly blushed just a very little bit when she thought about it afterwards-'positively glorious' came to her mind.

Smiling (well, more like beaming, actually), Lucy came forward out of a sort of thicket she'd barely even realized she was technically standing at the edge of while she watched him.

Edmund's hand reached for the hilt of his sword; he stood up straight and took a step back, close to the unicorn in case he had to make a speedy get away.

Oh, I do hope he wont! Lucy thought sadly-realizing how quickly he could get away again, if only he would stay put for more than five seconds!

He seemed prepared enough to climb onto the unicorn's back and ride, ride, ride as far away as suited him, but he hesitated when he recognized Lucy and saw her earnest little face peering out at him. He found himself wondering for a moment why Susan was considered the pretty one of the two sisters. He had even heard tales of Susan White Pevensie's beauty from travelers in the neighboring villages when he'd stopped by with his unicorn disguised as a regular horse (no small task!) and he himself wearing a dark cloak over his royal clothing. Goodness knew his brother was at least ten times more smitten with Susan than any of those travelers had been (poor guy, thought Edmund). But as Edmund looked at Lucy's face, he couldn't help but think that she had a certain charm of her own that was far too over-looked. He liked her sort of prettiness; it wasn't so delicate and floppy-looking in the way most pretty people were pretty. It was a stronger, rounder sort of elegance and her smile was more than a little pleasant.

"Hullo again." Lucy finally managed to part her smiling lips enough to speak.

He thought about ignoring her and going away as quickly as the unicorn would take him, then he changed his mind. "Hi."

Her smile widened, her whole face was aglow with joy and total satisfaction. "Oh, I _am_ glad!"

"Glad?" Edmund blurted out, taking a step towards her, followed closely by the unicorn who was curious about this unfamiliar friendly-looking girl and being of a horse-like breed was probably wondering if she had any lumps of sugar or else a carrot on her that she might be willing to share. "What of?"

"That you didn't just go away like you always do." Lucy clarified.

"Oh, that."

Lucy blinked at him, fighting back the urge to touch the side of his hand-the one closest to her-just to make sure he was really there in the flesh and they were really speaking outside of a dream. Then again, a dream would be better than nothing and whatever this was, it _felt_ real enough.

"Where have you been?" she asked finally, voicing the question that had been on her mind since he and his brother had left them.

He shook his head. "Long story."

"Is there anything Su or I could do?" Lucy's tone was meeker and less certain now.

"About what?" Edmund's brows came together in a slight frown.

"About whatever's wrong..." her voice trailed off and she wondered why her tongue felt so heavy, as if she was breaking some unspoken code by flat out asking. It was so odd, she'd never felt like this before. So weak and so strong at the same time. It didn't make sense; she cared, she was too happy to care, she was frightened, she was excited, she was just fine, she was strangely lonely.

The unicorn came to Lucy now and nudged her right hand with his nostril. "Hallo, there!" she stroked him and cooed into his soft velvety ears. Looking back at Edmund she asked what the unicorn's name was.

"He hasn't got one yet." Edmund told her. He had been far too busy as of late to bother thinking up a good name for the unicorn and it wasn't as if he could just come up with something retarded like, 'fluffy' and let the poor animal be emotionally scared for ever, it required more forethought.

"He _should_ have one." Lucy kissed the beautiful creature's nose.

"Of course he should." Edmund agreed, giving the unicorn a gentle pat on the side of the neck. "He's been a perfect brick, I just need to come up with something worthy of him, you know?"

"Yes, of course." Lucy could understand that.

"So, how have you been?" Edmund finally came up with, though his tone was somewhat awkward-it was only to be expected considering they hadn't spoken much outside of Lucy's dreams (actually, they hadn't even spoken very much _in_ them either, when he really thought about it).

"Fine," Lucy told him rather shortly, not out of crossness but out of lack of anything else to say. For some reason, she didn't think to mention the rude dwarf to him and as nothing else very interesting (other than Edmund himself showing up again) had happened as of late, didn't have much to go on.

"I guess you'll need a ride home?" Edmund offered. He didn't really want her to have to leave just yet, he was sort of enjoying talking to her, getting the feeling that once the awkward introductions and formalities got out of the way, she would be a lot of fun, but he didn't want her-or her sister for that matter-to get anymore involved with his family's unfortunate curse than she already was. It was too dangerous, they were coming too close, if Nikabrik...no, he wouldn't think about that now.

Lucy didn't want to go back to the cottage just yet; she'd only just started talking to him! She had so many things she still wanted to know. Was he as monosyllabic in answering questions as his brother was? Why was he watching over them-was it merely because he had to look after good children, or was it something else altogether? How had Peter become a bear? What had he been like before? She didn't ask any of these questions, though. Instead, she just stood there, looking at him, begging silently for answers.

Before he could say anything more to her, however, there was a sudden sharp mob-holler of, "The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!"

Edmund shuddered and let out a moan. "Not again!"

"Who are they?" Lucy asked, taking a step closer to Edmund and actually grabbing onto his lower arm out of fear as the little wild-looking men popped out of the thicket quite close to them.

"Dwarfs." he said bitterly, talking through his teeth.

And, in fact, they were. Lucy could see them for herself now that they were in clear eye-shot of the moonlight and the stream. They were mostly black dwarfs, like the one who had stolen her fishing rod, but there were a few others who weren't. None of them looked at all friendly and in the moonlight, the one in the front-who looked the most like the thankless dwarf she and Susan knew-seemed far more dangerous, simply because of the late hour. Suddenly Lucy found herself longing childishly for the safety and comfort of the bed back at the cottage-how could she have ever thought of leaving it? Susan was right, the world was dangerous, the forest was, too. At least she could comfort herself in the realization that Edmund was not about to deliver her up to these dwarfs. He was, in fact, standing with his sword pointed out at them as a warning for the group to come no closer.

"Is that _her_?" The dwarf in the front-Ginarrbrik-wheezed.

"What does it matter to you? Go away!" Edmund snapped at them, shaking his sword in a smooth stroke a few feet in front of Ginarrbrik. "Get!"

"If she's the one, we'd best kill her now, wouldn't want any queens anymore than we want kings." Ginarrbrik said, a grim but wide smile spreading across his face.

"The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!" The group cheered.

"It isn't her, you imbeciles!" Edmund exclaimed, his tone dangerously angry. "Certainly you can see she isn't old en-" suddenly he stopped, getting an idea. Apparently, the dwarfs had gotten wind of the fact that his brother was in love with one of the Narnian maidens from this area and seeing Edmund talking to Lucy, had mistaken her for his brother's sweetheart, young though she was. What if he let them think they had gotten rid of the lass, the one they suddenly deemed a threat not thinking clearly enough to realize that Peter could never marry in his current form (well he _could_ , but it would be really, really weird)?

Lucy goggled helplessly at the dirty little creatures, getting the idea-though she had no notion of what was really going on-that they wanted to kill her. She wondered why they would want to kill her when she didn't even know them. Perhaps they were Nikabrik's relatives and were very angry about the ruined beard? If so, they really had to learn to take a lighter view on life.

"Lucy," Edmund's lips were so close to her ear that if they weren't moving ever so slightly to whisper-in the lowest voice she had ever heard-they would have been basically kissing her lobe. "You need to trust me on this, alright? Pretend to faint or something and then play dead...count back from three in your mind and then just do it, okay?"

She had no reason to distrust Edmund, in fact, whether or not it was entirely sensible of her, she already liked him quite enough to trust him completely. Counting back from three just as he had told her to do, Lucy let her eyes widen and roll back as deeply as she could make them go before allowing herself to collapse on the reasonably-soft turf below. The thought of holding her breath until the dwarfs went away frightened her too much to go through with it, so she just held it back except for a very little bit, just the necessary breaths, struggling to keep her chest from moving up and down too much and possibly giving her away.

Her eyes were closed but she could still hear everything that was going on around her. Edmund's 'startled gasp', the dwarfs cheers (jeers?) of surprised delight, their horrid little feet as they took a step closer to see for themselves, Edmund's snarl (which reminded her very much of his brother) and command that they keep back and quit crowding her.

"You wicked dwarfs have already gone and frightened the poor lass to death, she had such a dreadful state of health and you-" Edmund's voice carried with too grand an echo to sound truly realistic, but the dwarfs didn't seem to notice. At any rate, it fooled Ginarrbrik, and as he was the leader, he was the only one who really mattered.

"Is she really dead?" Some smart mouth in the middle of the group just _had_ to ask.

"Course she is." said Edmund, his heart beating like a drum, terrified that 'liar' would be written all over his face. What would he do it they didn't believe him? He couldn't let them actually get close to Lucy's body, who knew what they might do to her? She trusted him, he had to protect her. She would have been better off falling into that gorge that first day they'd met than ending up at the mercy of the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs'.

"We'll need proof to show Nikabrik later." Ginarrbrik's raspy tone decided.

Edmund grimaced. What he could let them take without actually harming her? What was more, he hadn't counted on them taking anything to Nikabrik-who would surely know that neither girl was dead and reprimand his army of little men for being so daft. Thankfully, he was being overly discreet in appearing, even to his own people, until his beard grew back in (too vain to be seen very often with out it) so it would buy Peter and Edmund some time to come up with something.

"You could take a lock of her hair." It was the only thing Edmund could come up with, although he felt more than a little sorry at having to offer even a strand of it up; he liked Lucy's hair, he thought it was sort of pretty.

Ginarrbrik came forward with a rather large knife. "Fine then."

"Are you going to take a lock or a wig's worth?" He couldn't help snipping sarcastically.

The dwarf pouted and somehow Lucy could sense his displeasure even with her eyes still being tightly closed-it really wasn't all that difficult.

"Let me do it." Edmund sighed, taking out a small pair of scissors from a traveling pack he had with him. Kneeling down beside Lucy's body, he whispered, "I'm really sorry about this."

Lucy took a risk and opened her eyelids just a crack. Through them, she could see Edmund with his scissors in one hand and a very thin lock of her hair in the other. Nervous and feeling what may well have been the first prick of vanity she'd ever felt in her life, she shut her eyes all the way again. Then she heard the snap of the blades closing and forced herself not to wince. You're supposed to be dead, she had to remind herself.

A couple of minutes later, Edmund was thrusting the cut-away lock into Ginarrbrik's nasty, callous, soil-stained hands. "There!"

Handing the lock to the dwarf at his left, Ginarrbrik, still holding his knife, pounced on Edmund and pinned him to the ground. Although it was a surprise attack, it was not completely unexpected and Edmund had been through worse before so he knew what to do and wasn't afraid. Lucy, on the other hand, her eyes opened just a slit, was utterly terrified. She didn't even have the comfort of biting onto her lower lip to keep herself from shouting (corpses didn't bite) so it all had to be done with ordinary will-power.

Ginarrbrik raised his knife as if he was giving Edmund a slash across the throat; the unicorn neighed loudly and charged. The dwarf had no wish to get killed in such a manner and, looking down at his victim, who did seem at least partially injured, decided to retreat and take the rest of the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' with him.

When they were safely away, Lucy dared to get up and run over to Edmund. Her breath got caught up in her throat when she saw the red slash across his, not very deep, perhaps, but still vivid.

He opened his eyes and smiled at her; a sort of winking smile. Looking both ways, he sat up and gently slid his hand over his throat. When he pulled it away, the red mark was gone. "Don't cry, he didn't really get me, I only wanted to make him think he did. It was a trick, an illusion..." his eyes twinkled ever so slightly. "...but I hope a very good one."

"Whoa." Was all that came out of Lucy's mouth, this had all happened before she'd even gotten a chance to work up a good sob.

Standing up, he gave the unicorn a pat on the flanks which Lucy noticed for the first time had some scars on them. "Come on, we'd best get you back home where its safer."

"But why did they-" Lucy felt as though she simply must know; it was getting to be too much.

"Don't ask." Edmund told her, obviously having no intentions of explaining anything that had just happened as he climbed onto the unicorn's back and offered her his hand. "And I say, Lu, I am really sorry about your hair."

"It was only a lock." Lucy said, a little uneasy at how intense his tone was when he said that, as though he really _was_ very sorry about it. "But tell me, who were they? Who was that Nikabrik person they mentioned?"

Edmund shook his head. "I told you, don't ask."

Lucy sighed and took the offered hand, allowing him to swing her up onto the unicorn's bare back, right in front of him. His arms went around her to grasp the creature's mane but it seemed that he was mostly holding on with his knees anyway.

When they got close enough that Lucy could see the cottage in the distance, Edmund stopped the unicorn and helped her off. He went with her all the rest of the way on foot, always looking nervously over his shoulder every few seconds. When her hand went to the latch, Edmund turned to leave. It appeared he didn't mean to say goodbye at all, but Lucy wasn't about to let him off that easily; She wanted to thank him for everything he'd done for her, and of course, for saving her life back there in the forest-even if she didn't understand it. Standing on the tips of her toes, she leaned forward and kissed his right cheek.

It wasn't anything particularly shocking; all the same, his face turned a bit red and the smile on it was just a little different from the other smiles Lucy had seen on his face that night. He didn't say anything about it though; he only went back to where he'd left the unicorn-he had a long way to travel if he wanted to get to his brother and tell him what had happened before the dwarfs told him their version.


	9. Violin

That morning as Susan brushed her little sister's hair, she sensed that something was amiss. Of course, she really might have figured that out much sooner if she'd been paying proper attention to Lucy, but she hadn't-perhaps because of being a little ashamed of their argument the day before; she had never known her sister to tell lies, or even to exaggerate, and yet, she couldn't believe her. It couldn't be true-all that nonsense about Peter the bear having a fairy for a brother! He was fine bear and a good friend; truly, Susan herself was quite fond of him, but that didn't make him a victim of an enchantment any more than it made him the Tisroc of Calormen! The very notion was absurd; but Lucy believed it, and it seemed that she would go on believing it for a good while longer, too.

There was one thing Susan had noticed about Lucy that morning before she'd realized there was anything to possibly be worried about: that she didn't seem at all upset. Strange as it was, considering how hurt and distraught she had been the day before, she actually seemed happy. She dragged herself out of bed late in the morning, rubbing her sleepy eyes, even humming a little to herself, and smiling as though she had a little secret kept close to her heart.

Now, the oddest discovery of all-at least in Susan's perception-was that there was one part of Lucy's hair-only a tiny lock, but it was still noticeable if you were combing out the tangles-that was cut off. It was done reasonably neatly, in spite of being just the littlest bit slanted as if whomever had cut it had been in a hurry but was trying to be careful at the same time.

Susan thought briefly of pointing the missing lock out to Widow Pevensie but she decided to question Lucy herself first; she could always tell their mother afterwards if there really was something wrong. If not, it was best not to make a big deal about it.

"Lucy did you cut off a lock of your hair for some reason?" Susan asked, not unkindly-though a little sternly.

"No." Lucy answered truthfully, wondering whether or not she ought to tell her sister about what had happened last night. She wanted to, certainly, but Susan would never believe her; moreover, she would get in trouble for leaving the cottage alone at night. Maybe she could just take a lesson in brief unhelpful answers from Peter and Edmund, they seemed to be experts on those.

"Then what happened to it?" Susan asked calmly, in spite of starting to feel quite frustrated. Lucy _never_ kept secrets, she always spoke her mind, and she had to choose _right now_ to suddenly become withdrawn and quiet? It was more than a little aggravating.

'Well, Susan, dear sister, I snuck outside the cottage last night-following a dryad into the forest-and I met up with Edmund and his unicorn and we were attacked by a group of mad dwarfs who wanted to kill me so Ed, clever fellow that he is, had me fake my own death; it would have worked if the dwarfs hadn't wanted something to take with them as proof, so you see he _had_ to cut off a lock.' Those words rested on the tip of Lucy's tongue, unbelievable and dangerous as they were, but they could come no further; they were words that would not transform themselves into sounds that could be heard by the ears of the living. All that Lucy actually said was, "Nothing."

By this point, Susan was tempted to give Lucy a good scolding and then drag their mother into it in spite of herself and her belief that she could handle these 'petty matters' without assistance. In the end, however, she didn't, vowing instead to keep a sharper eye on Lucy (within reason) from that point on, just in case.

Two days later, in another part of Narnia-so far south that it was almost Archenland-Edmund's unicorn trotted over a narrow green valley-pass to where he knew his brother would be. He was going at a slower-paced trot so that he didn't miss the turn; for the small vineyard-like enclosure where he, his brother, and the loyal ones of their former household and royal court often hid from the wicked dwarfs, was easy-even for a traveler much smaller than Edmund-to miss if he didn't know what he was looking for. The unicorn could easily pass through it and come along, but only if the rider knew the right way to go about it. Indeed, if that were not the case, the whole purpose of the location would have been lost seeing as a bear was far bigger than any horse, unicorn, or centaur that might come that way and the dwarfs were much smaller.

Edmund knew, both by his experiences in the past and by ways only those of his own kind could know, that he had to guide the unicorn to the rockier side though it looked rough and quite bad for feet and for hooves alike. It was a little more real than the illusion he had used on the dwarfs that night with Lucy-because that couldn't have hurt at all and this, if you stepped wrong not knowing any better, could-but essentially it was made up of the same stuff; not half so dangerous as it appeared.

As he fully expected, less than a mile inward, the rocks were gone and there was nothing but dusty dry ground, nothing that looked very good or pleasing-yet-and a long, rather dull-looking, crude parody of a road. Further up it and veering just a little to one side, green grass appeared in ever increasing amounts until it was almost a small felid's worth. Then a very thin cobblestone path spread out before him, going up the side of a lush emerald-green hill, towards a small manor that had originally been a sort of pleasure-house for the royal family back in the olden days when things had been very different for himself and his brother.

The first thing he did was to look around the stables for his brother because it was one of the few places the bear could reside in without feeling cramped. There was a large back-room with a tall celing that had space enough for a bear to spread out, but Peter rarely ever went in there; it was too painful for him because it contained many musical instruments which he had once loved back when his hands had been the right shape and size to hold them.

Edmund did in fact find his brother in the stable; the bear was hunched up in a corner, his fur coat in unsightly clumps, plopped listlessly on a bed of heather and straw. He didn't move or blink or turn around to acknowledge his younger brother's return. Edmund might have thought he was sleeping but he could tell, being the attentive sort of boy that he was, that this was no regular mid-day nap.

"He's been like that since word came this way from the dwarf with the white messenger flag outside the valley reached us." A voice behind him said, making him jump a little.

Turning around, he saw Jill standing there looking very sorrowful. Her dress was not a mourning frock, but it was a darker colour than she would usually wear-perhaps in an attempt to compensate for not wearing a gown with a real mourning hue, a red shade darker even than blood itself.

Edmund's stomach gave a lurch and his throat formed a groan, he could guess what the news was if he had to. How _had_ they gotten word of mouth this far so quickly?

"I'm so sorry about the little girl, your majesty." Jill said, wringing her hands together awkwardly as she spoke gravely and blinked back the tears in her eyes. "We saw the lock of hair, Trumpkin swiped it off of that awful Ginarrbrik and...well just from the colour Peter knew it wasn't really the elder one they'd gotten..."

"How long?" Edmund blurted out, looking nervously over at his brother's seemingly unconscious bear-body.

"A day or so." Jill sighed, following his gaze to the beast that should have been their king. "Oh, I do wish there was something you could say to him, none of us can get through, it's like he's a candle that's been snuffed out. He's still breathing, so we know he isn't dead-but he has shut himself completely off."

"Pete?" Edmund leaned closer to the bear's body and touched the side lightly. Nothing, not even a shudder of surprise or a flicker of a lack-luster eye cracking open. No ears twitched and he doubted if the bear would have been able to hear him even if he had been shouting at the top of his lungs.

"He'll waste away to nothing if he spends very many more hours like that." said Jill, sounding timid and a little frightened.

Edmund nodded, he knew what he had to do. "I'll fix him."

Jill smiled, looking relieved. "Thank you, you know he is still _our_ king, whatever those dim-wit dwarfs say and seeing him like this..."

"I know." Edmund closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, holding the breath in for a soothing second of composure before slowly letting it out again.

Next, he gently gripped the side of the bear's fur very tightly, knowing he probably wouldn't sense it and feel pain anyway-he was too far gone for that. Concentrating very hard, he felt himself vanishing, traveling out of the actual manor-the one in reality-and into another one that existed only inside of his brother's mind. He did not open his eyes and lessen his focus right away, not having any wish to stop too soon and find himself stuck between the gauze-like black veiled barrier between the real living world and the mental one. When at last he was pretty sure he'd made it all the way in-though it had been very hard to break through-Edmund dared to open his eyes and allow his senses to adjust to the change he had just thrust upon them.

He found now that he was in a dark, drafty, ruin-like room which he noticed had a good deal of shattered stain-glass all over the floor. It was cold and lonely here and the sky just beyond the broken windows was dark and stormy; leaving only the weakest trickles of gray light to reflect off of the eyes and make the room visible. Almost stumbling, Edmund reached for something on the left. If this was, as he assumed, his brother's mental recreation of one of the studies they'd had back in Cair Paravel, there should have been a bookcase with a thick handle he could grab onto to steady himself with before he fell on the shards of glass and hurt himself. There was.

What Edmund had to do now was find Peter, the only problem being that he was having a hard time locating him in his dreary state of mind. The faint gray light was just barely steady enough for Edmund to watch his step with and he thought he smelled burnt wood. When the shadows moved an inch over to left, he noticed that the wall did indeed look black, like it had been partly consumed by fire a long while ago-it had to be a long while ago, before things got so cold and distant.

There was nothing else for it, Edmund cupped his hands around his mouth and started calling through the darkness for his brother. "Peter! Peter! Pete? Are you here? Where are you?"

No answer; Edmund had to keep on moving, only hoping he was going the right way. The gray shadows turned silvery-purple in one place and slid over, casting a little trickle of almost-decent light next to a desk in the far corner of the room. The desk was lopsided due to missing a leg but it still held up two objects, a torn-looking tome of law and a smashed up, worm-eaten violin, its bow with ripped strings laid out beside it. From behind the desk, Edmund saw a white hand holding a little lock of hair.

"There you are!" exclaimed Edmund, glad he had found his brother at last.

No answer, but at least a bit of movement; his brother slid into the trickle of light so that the left side of him was visible, and not just his hand. He didn't look up at Edmund, though, or even seem to notice that he was there. He was, of course, not a bear there in that fake world as he was in the real one; rather, he had his old appearance: that of a golden-haired young man, looking no more than a year or so older than Susan White Pevensie, possessing the same blue eyes as the bear. Only he was much more withered, broken, and sallow than the jolly-faced brother Edmund remembered. Peter had used to have a sort of glow about him, a sort of happiness that always shown through like candlelight, but it had faded to nothing more than the weakest of all embers, darkened like a dead coal that could never be turned into a diamond.

"She's gone." These words did not seem to be directed towards Edmund, but only a simple, repeated phrase that had all but lost its meaning. There was no emotion in the voice, in spite of the hint that there may have been a few dozen hours ago.

Thinking quickly, Edmund reached for the violin. Peter half-noticed his hand when he did this. "It's broken."

Edmund smiled faintly, obviously a little forced but still genuine. "It'll be fine, it only needs a little fixing." his eyes shifted from the violin back over to his brother. "Just like you."

Peter gaped at him blankly for a moment and then turned away, uninterested. He didn't seem to have actually recognized Edmund and he was more intent on squinting down through the darkness at the lock of hair in his hands.

Slowly and gently, Edmund ran his hands along the violin. The parts that his palms and fingers slid over, became whole and uncracked again, the wood shinning far brighter than anything else in the study. When it was completely transformed, he took the bow and let his fingers mend the strings. In that sort of world, anyone, even a regular sort of human, could have done this, for none of it was real, they were nothing but apparitions. Back in reality, Edmund had not even left the bear's side or let go of his fur and Peter had not turned back from being a talking beast instead of himself.

The violin was sparkling as though it was lit from the inside out by a million fire-flies and the bow fairly glittered. Edmund nudged his brother up form the chair and carefully slid the violin under Peter's chin. Next, he pulled his fingers open and put the bow in his hand. The fingers on the other hand, he put on their proper places on the instrument. When Peter could not bring himself to do anything other than look out into space as if he had no more notion of his senses than an inanimate object does (in fact, the violin seemed more alive than he did), Edmund pulled his arm so that it moved the bow and played a note.

It was a beautiful, sweet, warm note and it echoed through the dark, damaged room, becoming a ball of light and oil that turned it into something worth seeing. The gray light became golden and the clouds beyond the window parted at last; a blue sky in clear view. The stain glass pieces collected themselves up and became whole windows again, leaving not even a splinter behind as the cracks disappeared. The black wall became white again and the pillars became silver and gold. The desk got its leg back and the tome became as lovely as a fairytale book bound in the finest leather. Peter changed, too; his face had colour again just like everything else in the room, though it still seemed a little sad.

Without thinking, Peter pulled away and continued playing the violin his brother had put in his hands until the whole room was just as it had been in his earliest happy memories of Cair Paravel. His eyes were shut but then his lashes fluttered and they opened, taking everything in now.

He noticed Edmund standing a few inches away looking very satisfied with his work. "Edmund? What are you doing here?"

"You needed my help." Edmund shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "You would have done the same for me."

Peter blinked, loosening his grip on the violin just a little bit. "What happened to me, Ed?"

"Listen to me, Peter, Lucy isn't dead." Edmund had to tell him flat-out before another word was spoken. "You thought she was and it really scared you."

"It almost killed me, Ed." Peter murmured, looking very discomfited. "I...I don't know...but I don't think I would have lasted much longer if you hadn't intervened."

"That's what brothers are for." said Edmund, reaching up and taking the lock of hair out of Peter's hand where it still rested against the bow. "Are you ready to go back now?"

"Yeah..." Peter breathed in and out deeply, healing all of his inward aches and wounds at least for the moment.

"Okay, I'm going now." Edmund told him.

"Alright then." Peter nodded.

"You'll be fine."

"I know."

"Good." With that, Edmund started looking around, seeming a bit confused. "Which way?"

Peter chuckled lightly and pointed to a door leading out of the study. "That door."

"Thank you." with that, Edmund opened the door and walked out of it.

The next thing he knew, he was back at the manor, still clinging to his brother's fur. He let go when he saw the bear's eye-lids crinkle and then open, not just a slit, but all the way.

Jill, who had been watching it all with a little less fascination than most people who haven't seen the sort of things she had seen in her lifetime would, was not completely relieved when she saw the bear's eyes open. She was glad, certainly, but she was also very worried. For she realized something, that the dwarfs, morons though they were, had-however unwittingly-at last found Peter's weakness: Susan White and Rose Lucy.


	10. Griffin

The summer was almost coming to an end for that year. Though the days still remained long, the well-lighted evenings were much cooler and the mornings were nippy. It was comfortably warm for most of the middle day apart from that one hour where the air seemed to suddenly remember it wasn't really autumn just yet and became muggy and oven-like. Then it would proceed to promptly forget all over again.

It was on one of these days that Widow Pevensie, having realized that her lovely eldest girl was growing up, decided she must come up with something like a trousseau; for surely Susan would have to marry and leave her sometime or other and she couldn't wait until the last minute to be prepared. The notion of her first daughter being an old maid was as absurd and unlikely to her as the thought of the sun exploring in the middle of the afternoon while she hung the linen out to dry. All of the young men loved Susan and, as she was such a social young lady by nature, surely one of them would manage to win her favor.

At that thought, Widow Pevensie actually had to blink back a few tears as she remembered her own mother-Susan and Lucy's late grandmother-preparing her to be a bride. How she'd bucked at first and rather loudly insisted that she had no wish to leave home! Then, of course, she had. She now knew something she had never really given much thought to before that very day and hour: that indeed, after she and Susan and Lucy's father left-all dressed up in their wedding finery-her mother must have cried, and that one day, she, too, would be left watching the door-both happy and sad at the same time-weeping for her eldest child as well. At least, she would still have Lucy for a little longer; that was somewhat comforting.

Susan, sitting beside her mother's chair, helping Lucy untangle a ball of blue yarn for the edge of a scarf they were trying to make together, noticed the sentimental look on Widow Pevensie's face but she didn't ask about it. She already knew. Of course she was getting older, very nearly all grown up, and surely what was left over of the gold coins that had somehow appeared in her little sister's hand (she did not believe as Lucy did that the fairy who watches over good children was the one who had left it for them) while they'd slept that past winter would not last for ever. It would last for a while, but Susan's practical mind kept on reminding itself that having only two mouths to feed would make it last longer than it would for three.

The question was, if she was going to make up her mind to get herself married off, who could she take for a husband? She'd decided that she wouldn't very much like to be married to a poor man, even if he was kind, because the notion of going hungry or lying awake at night wondering if your husband was going to be able to provide enough for yourself and the children (because of course Susan wanted children; she'd been so skilled in looking after her little sister that having one or two of her own seemed only logical) was thoroughly unpleasant.

Also, she knew she could never take her Calormene suitor, a soldier in the Tisroc's army named Rabadash who had once or twice stayed a couple of nights in their cottage while he was passing through, heading north on business in Ettinsmoor. She'd liked him well enough at first (though Lucy had hated him at once) but slowly came to realize that most-if not all-of his virtues were put-on and completely pretend. He was very wealthy, but she would rather drown herself in the brook than become his wife. His brother, younger than him by only a year, was another matter, he was a good man who went by the name of Emeth. But then, Rabadash would take great offence if she proposed the idea of marrying his brother after refusing him. Seeing as she didn't even know Emeth very well (he may have been kinder than his brother, but he was also a lot quieter), much less actually love him, it wasn't worth provoking the wrath of a dangerous soldier over.

The young men in the near-by villages were mostly a bunch of drooling, stammering, idiots around Susan and she really didn't much care for any of them except for possibly the nephew of a Telmarine Merchant, a well-off fellow who was called Caspian. She found the uncle to be perfectly beastly but he himself wasn't at all bad. Susan thought he might take her for a wife although she knew that he did an awful lot of trading with a retired star, Ramandu, who lived at one of the outskirts of the village market place. The rumor was that he was smitten with the star's beautiful daughter-one of the precious few local young ladies who were equal to Susan in looks.

Strangely enough, Peter the talking bear-the one her sister was convinced had a fairy for a brother-randomly popped into her mind. She wished one of the village boys had a personality-and eyes-like his; with those traits she thought she could even have almost put up with being wed to a pauper. No one else looked at her the way that strange, clearly mentally-troubled, black bear did nor had anyone else ever made her feel both perfectly safe and frightened out of her wits at the same time. Of course, she would have to put aside any fancies of finding someone like that, Peter was one of a kind, and a bear was most certainly _not_ an eligible suitor!

Thinking this over, Susan shook her head and sighed. She didn't have to figure all this out today, she might as well relax and enjoy herself with her mother and sister seeing as she wasn't leaving them just yet.

"Darlings, it's still quite early," said Widow Pevensie, looking up from the patchwork in her lap. "and I was thinking of how nice it would be to have some napkins with ribbons on the edges of them in your future trousseau, Susan, not to mention I'm running low on thread again, so if you two wouldn't mind going off to the village and getting some-oh and a couple of scraps of gray-coloured lace, too."

Lucy and Susan agreed to go to the village market right away and return before dark-something they could not have possibly promised at that hour if it hadn't still been summertime. Susan made sure Lucy looked presentable knowing well that because her they didn't go into the village very often and had no one but passersby and travelers to judge them, her little sister occasionally let her appearance slide. When Susan was satisfied that Lucy's face and fingernails were clean enough and that her hair was combed and braided neatly, they lifted the latch to leave the cottage with their usual exchange; hand in hand as always.

The road leading into the village was opposite from the route that they took when they went to the forest, taking the girls to a large rocky hill with a good many crevasses and caves (Susan had strictly forbid Lucy from attempting to explore any of them since she was two and had tried to wander into one out of curiosity) around which the long, dusty dirt road they needed to travel bent. It was a lonely, secluded little area and it was very rarely that the two sisters ever saw anyone else while traveling through it. Which was why they were very startled to hear a familiar panicked shriek. They knew right away it was the rude little dwarf they had helped twice before.

"I wonder what it could possibly be this time," said Susan, looking somewhere between apathetic and irritated. "he hasn't got enough of a beard left to get it caught on anything else!"

Lucy choked back a giggle, knowing that the situation really wasn't terribly funny and she really shouldn't laugh at the dwarf's constant misadventures. If she had known their little acquaintance for who he truly was, the very 'Nikabrik' that the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' had mentioned that night in the forest when they'd wanted to kill her and had tried to attack Edmund, and all the horrible things he was reasonable for, all the things he had done to Peter and his loyal courtiers, Lucy probably would have refused to have anything to do with him and would have been disgusted at the notion of saving such vile person from getting no more than he truly deserved. As it was, she knew nothing of his past and liked to believe that maybe, deep down, even if he never outwardly showed it, he was at least a little grateful for their help.

They reached the squealing, howling, thrashing Nikabrik at the very centre of the bend in the road; he was being lifted up off the ground by a magnificently stunning gold-and-brown griffin who held him tightly in his claws by his russet coat. He flapped his large golden-feathered wings as if intending to fly off with Nikabrik as his prey as opposed to picking him up merely for fun and games.

Susan gaped at the creature, the whites of her eyes as big as dinner plates. She had only seen one griffin before in her life; she had been very small, and it had been a good distance away from her. Now she could see how very massive the great creature was, how majestic, how terrifying. So nervous did the sight of the griffin make her, that she had very nearly taken it up in her mind that she must grab Lucy's hand at once and run, leaving the dwarf to fend for himself. Indeed, she felt rather awful about it, seeing as she and Lucy might have a better chance of fighting against the creature and winning-slim as it was-than the little dwarf would but as far as she could figure, there was nothing else to be done.

Lucy, for her part, was not really afraid of the griffin-she was far too dazzled by his beauty and lovely cries of 'caw-caw' as he clanked his elegant beak. But she was puzzled by its actions. Griffins, in most of the stories she'd ever been told (or else, over-heard, which is not necessarily the same thing) about them, said they were good, that they had always fought for justice and the true rulers of Narnia. So many times had she imagined their great feats of crushing villainous armies who would dare to attack their beloved country and kingdom. If that was all true, however, why was this one being so cruel as to try and carry of the dwarf? Never once had any bit of Narnian history she'd ever been taught included a griffin eating a dwarf; the impression was that they lived entirely on non-talking animals.

Before anything more could happen, Nikabrik's glance shifted and he caught sight of Susan White and Rose Lucy watching him struggle against the griffin. How dare those two lousy, good-for-nothing, hussies watch him go to his death. Stupid girls!

"You two!" He shouted at them, very loudly so that he could be heard over the griffin's clanking and squawking. "Don't just stand there to save your own wretched skin! Help me! Don't let him take me! Please, oh please!"

"He _did_ say 'please'." Lucy whispered with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "It's a start."

"Oh but that..." Susan motioned at the griffin nervously before her tender heart took over her resolve to save only herself and her sister. "Drat, I suppose we might as well have left him caught in that tree or have let him drown in the brook for all the good we're doing him right now! We'll have to help him again."

Lucy nodded grimly and stuck out her chin as she and her sister rushed out at the griffin to rescue the dwarf. Susan flailed her arms to and fro at it as if she was trying to shoo away a stray dog. "Get! Go away, let him go!"

"You idiot, it's not going to let me down just because you-" Nikabrik's voice stopped mid-sentence because the griffin gave him a sudden shake almost as if to reprimand him.

Thinking quickly, Lucy jumped up and grabbed onto the sleeve of the dwarf's coat in an attempt to pull him down to safety. "Ah!" she grunted when the griffin pulled back, still trying to carry the dwarf off in spite of her efforts.

The griffin was so powerful that it might have been able to lift both Lucy and Nikabrik off the ground if it had put a little more effort into it (and if it had been a truly wild creature, it surely would have; but it wasn't dumb and it didn't want Lucy, only the wicked dwarf). Thinking now that her sister and the dwarf would be in terrible trouble if she didn't move quickly, Susan grabbed onto the other coat sleeve and pulled as hard as she could.

Between Susan and Lucy's tugging and Nikabrik's endless whining and crying while they were doing it, the griffin got tired and, in the end, gave up, left the dwarf with the girls, and flew away.

"Phew!" Lucy exclaimed, shooting the dwarf a friendly smile. "That was close."

The dwarf did not smile back, he pouted, scowled, and glared all at once. "You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, _stupid_ girls!" he stamped his foot on the ground in a flustered fury.

Susan rolled her eyes; she hadn't expected anything more from him this time and as long as he wasn't cursing and cussing like a sailor in front of Lucy, she decided she could deal with it.

"What _are_ you so upset about?" Lucy wanted to know, looking innocently at the dwarf who's eyes were flashing and teeth were slightly bared. "Aren't you glad you weren't carried off by that griffin?"

"Couldn't you have been more careful about it?" He huffed, in a very high-and-mighty voice. "I can feel that my coat is all torn up in the back-"

"The thin-I mean, the griffin, did that." Susan pointed out coolly, raising an eyebrow.

"Perhaps, but you made it worse and you ruined my sleeves while you were at it!" Nikabrik hissed irksomely, reaching into a crack in a large boulder and pulling out a sack hidden there while he spoke.

"Good day, then, Mr. Dwarf." Susan sighed politely, taking Lucy's hand again and marching the rest of the way down the bend in the road, going right into the village.

The market place was bursting with lively people strolling around lines and groups of canopy-covered stalls and buying and selling various things. The air smelled like candy and hot, freshly baked bread; Lucy inhaled deeply, she couldn't imagine actually _living_ in a place as hurried and rushed as this village was, but it was so much fun to visit on occasion. Susan went from stall to stall, looking for the things their mother had told them to get, checking back over her shoulder from time to time to make sure Lucy was still behind her-that she hadn't wandered off.

A rather hard-faced Telmarine merchant named Miraz was naming the prices on a few items while Susan's nose wrinkled and her mouth recoiled into a grimace just from being in his presence. Lucy didn't like looking at him either, he gave her the creeps and his wife, Prunaprismia, who stood beside him running her perfectly smooth hands over a few brass vases to polish them, was equally unpleasnt to stare at for long periods of time. So she looked away, trying to find something else to focus on.

Two stalls down, she caught sight of what was surely an absolutely splendid white horse standing beside a huddled figure in an ebony black cloak lightly lined with gold thread on the edges. The horse had a large pointed silver covering on his head designed to have the shape of a unicorn's horn and his flanks were covered by a large crimson saddle-blanket lined with purple fringes. The strange thing was, Lucy could have sworn she knew that horse from somewhere. The horse must have been thinking the same thing about Lucy because his head lifted and his ears pricked noticing her looking at him; deciding to go over and see her before his reclusive owner, realizing that the horse meant to wander, grabbed onto the his lead rope and refused to let go. The horse let out a sad snort of protest and the owner leaned in to whisper a sharp, "No!" in his ear.

Curious, Lucy took a couple of steps closer to the stall the horse was near. It occurred to her that Susan would notice her wandering off and perhaps be angry, but when she looked back, she saw that Susan was now busying talking (and yes, flirting, though we wont hold that against her in the long run) with Miraz's nephew, Caspian, who had just shown up at his uncle's stall.

The huddled, cloaked figure with the white horse lifted his head and seemed to notice them although Lucy still couldn't see his face. A sudden unexpected gust of wind that was a bit stronger than a summer breeze-even a late one-ought to be, blew through the market place. The figure's hood was tossed back. In a flash, she saw all there was to take in: A white face and short, dark hair. He-for the figure was a he-was quicker than lightning, flinging the hood back over himself so speedily that it is unlikely that anyone besides Lucy who had been watching him so intently had caught the glimpse of his face.

"Edmund." Lucy whispered under her breath in an almost inaudible tone. For it all became perfectly clear now, the figure was none other than Edmund himself, and the lovely horse was not really a 'horse' at all, but his unicorn in disguise.

Another cloaked figure, with a slightly shorter hood that slid far more frequently than it probably should have, came up close to Edmund and stood with his back to him, pretending to be utterly fascinated with some small object at the opposite stall. Once, when his hood fell back very nearly all the way and he fumbled to cover his face again, Lucy was able to decipher that it was a boy, probably just a little younger than herself, and that he was fair-headed. It seemed to her that the two cloaked figures, Edmund and the other boy, must have been in this-whatever this was-together even if they never so much as glanced at the other. It took a moment, but she figured it out. They were like spies; they were whispering to each other but not facing one another while doing so.

Oh, how clever! Lucy couldn't help but think-with very deep admiration for Edmund who must have had some part in planning it, to most people, even enemies, they don't seem to have anything in common or to do with each other except for the fact that they are both wearing those heavy cloaks during the summer, they wont seem quite so suspicious in such a large crowd of people that way; besides, they probably aren't the only ones who are wearing cloaks here, there _are_ so _many_ people!

Lucy started to look around to see if there were any dwarfs in the market place. Of course there were, this was Narnia after all, but she couldn't help wondering if any of them might have been involved with what had happened that night in the forest. No one looked particularly suspicious; she decided she would go over and try to speak to Edmund. If he didn't want to face her, that was fine, she could just do what the other hooded figure was doing: pretend to be looking at someone else, doing something else, all the while really talking to Edmund.

Unfortunately just as she was getting close enough to speak-she could have spoken sooner but she thought it might be wise to wait until she was close enough to speak in a lower voice-Susan finished up taking to Caspian, smiling coyly as she gathered up the things she'd paid for at his uncle's stall and turned to leave. She instantly started looking for Lucy, found her, and grabbed her hand saying it was time to start heading back to the cottage.

It was almost more than Lucy could take. "Oh, Su, not just yet, please! I've just spotted a friend and I must go and speak to him at once."

"We haven't any time for that; we need to start off now if we want to be home before dark like we promised." Susan wasn't one for intense physical restraints (although she could use them when she had to), she was more for logical reasoning. Sane, normal, truthful, facts of life that no one could argue with or debate.

But Lucy was in no mood for that today (it seemed most unfair to her that Susan could linger to flirt with that merchant's nephew and yet she wasn't allowed to go over and speak to someone when she wanted to). "Just for a moment, Susan, I really nee-"

"Don't be naughty, Lucy." she used her best no-nonsense tone. "If there's anyone you know here worth conversing with, they will come again and so will we but now-"

"Oh, Su, you don't understand!" Lucy was nearly in anguish by this point. She wasn't sure why, but she felt that something really important was happening, something that only Edmund had the answer to. How badly she wanted to tell her sister what she suspected was really going on here, to tell her and to be _believed_ for once!

It was no use in the end, though; Susan, being older and stronger, got her own way and was quickly leading an almost teary-eyed Lucy out of the market place back towards the dirt road that would take them home.


	11. Cave

Nikabrik the dwarf stood at the bend in the dirt road, he had been scowling only a little while ago-angry and cross and thoroughly displeased-but now a smile had actually come onto his face. It was, in fact, the first time he had smiled since his beard had been cut off (he still blamed Susan and Lucy for that even though they wouldn't have had to cut it off at all if he'd managed to keep himself out of trouble). The reason for the smile now was that he thought himself quite alone, alone enough to open his latest sack and admire their contents in the last few rays of the sunlight. Though he was not at all the sort of person who had any appreciation for beauty, he did know what wealth was, and he loved to gloat. Surely no one would be coming this way at this hour. At any rate, it was a fairly seldom-used road. Beaming smugly, he opened the sack and dumped its contents onto the ground.

Tons and tons-perhaps even a thousand if they were all counted up-of glistening precious stones and gems; emeralds, rubies, diamonds, topazes, pearls, aquamarines, crystals, sapphires, amethysts, and large stones a dark yellowish colour which was in general called, 'Fay's gold' because most humans, dwarfs, centaurs, beasts, and other creatures had never even seen this kind of jewel, never mind actually owned one, landed on the ground with almost musical-sounding _clink_ s. Nikabrik grinned down at his booty, feeling very pleased with himself.

Though it hardly seemed possible, the sack was not yet empty, which Nikabrik well knew. At the bottom, there was a small jewelry box which he thought-hoped-contained the four most valuable pieces of jewelry in all of the Narnian Universe. No where, not in Archenland, Calormen, Ettinsmoor, or even in the secret places far beyond the Lone Islands, did there exist objects so powerful as these that the dwarf desperately wanted to possess along with all his new-found wealth. Rubbing his dirty, coarse, greedy hands together, the dwarf took the box out into the open and flung off the lid. Peering in he saw there were chains of gold and ropes of pearls so milky-white they glowed like the moon itself; he hastily moved these aside. Yes, with all of this he could buy a pleasure palace and hire servants and live comfortably, but he'd already known he could have all of those things just from the glittering stones in this sack and the other two like it he'd taken. What he wanted was something even more special. They would be amongst the rings, surely, he decided-cheering up a great deal when he noticed the box did contain a fair share of rings, all different shapes and sizes.

His expression became bitter again when he saw that none of these rings were _the_ rings, the ones the two royal fay brothers had so cleverly managed to keep hidden from him. None could have been because, though there were golden rings, they weren't the right hue of yellow. And though there were indeed a good deal of emerald rings, they were not the correct tint of green. Or maybe they were; quickly, looking both ways, Nikabrik slipped a golden ring onto his middle finger, concentrated, and shut his eyes. Nothing happened.

Grunting furiously to himself, he pulled the ring off and flung it into one of the nearby caves. "Stupid! Useless! I hate those stupid fays, I hate them!"

Coming around the bend, completely unprepared for the sight their eyes would meet when they reached the turn, were Susan and Lucy. Lucy was still a little cross over not being permitted to go and speak to Edmund and the other cloaked figure in the market place so she wasn't saying much to Susan. Susan thought her little sister was simply being sulky and overly dramatic-the way young children get when they aren't given their own way-let the walk pass in silence, certain Lucy would get over it soon enough and be her normal, happy, chipper self in no time. But they soon forgot their thoughts, dazzled by the heaps and heaps of valuable gems spread out all over the road as if they were ordinary rocks and stones.

"Oh my!" exclaimed Susan, quite at a loss for words.

"Gosh, isn't it lovely?" Lucy breathed, watching the almost-setting sun cause the gems to cast rainbow lights all over the side-caves.

Then they noticed Nikabrik, who in turn, noticed them, too. He was not at all pleased to see them, already in a foul mood over not finding what he wanted in the box.

"Where did you get all these?" Lucy couldn't help asking the dwarf, unable to shift her gaze off of the beautiful jewels even for a moment.

"None of your business!" He snarled, coming towards them with a dangerously fearsome look on his face. "I've had enough of you two getting in my way."

"Getting in your way?" Susan repeated incredulously. "We've saved you three times; without us, you would have been caught for ever, or else drowned, or even carried off by that griffin."

"You are too stupid; you goose-heads don't even know what's going on here! If you think your sorry selves to be helping me, why did you harbor my greatest foe in your home? Why did you tear my coat and cut my poor beard? Eh? Bad luck to you clumsy hussies!" Nikabrik howled and raved like a lunatic and though Susan felt she really must grab Lucy and race back to the cottage-getting away from the mad dwarf-as fast as possible, she could not stop herself from continuing to stand there gaping at him in confusion.

"I'm going to teach you a lesson!" Unexpectedly and completely uncalled for, Nikabrik suddenly lunged at Lucy and grabbed onto her right arm, twisting it around her back so that it hurt terribly. She let out a cry of pain and Susan kicked at the dwarf, demanding for him to unhand her sister immediately.

When he didn't let go and Lucy kept on crying out, certain that her arm, and very likely her wrist as well, would be broken if the dwarf carried on like this for much longer, a very strange thing happened. Bounding out of a small wood-like cluster of trees in the distance from the other side of the deserted bend, came a large black bear-roaring and growling his whole head off.

Gulping, Nikabrik turned around and faced him, still holding onto poor Lucy's arm. "You!"

Though the dwarf seemed to expect the bear to answer him in speech, the bear did not, rather he just growled louder.

"Don't do this!" The dwarf cried out suddenly attempting to sound like a piteious victim after he had just attacked a poor little girl who had never done him any harm for no reason at all. "You don't want to do this."

The bear paid him no heed, he just growled and roared all the more until finally, Nikabrik, at the end of this collective wits by this point, thrust Lucy in front of himself. "Eat her, leave me alone!"

The bear actually paused for a moment, raising an eyebrow as if to say, 'Are you kidding me? You can't be serious!' and cocked his head to the side in such an almost tame fashion that Lucy, looking up into the beast's eyes-which were blue-recognized him.

"Peter!" She gasped excitedly, wondering what was going on. Why didn't he speak? Why did he just roar and growl and fuss like that? What was he trying to do?

Susan came closer, meaning to rescue her sister from both the dwarf and the bear-whom she didn't know for the same bear who had stayed with them that winter, not yet having seen him up close enough to recognize his eyes. Picking up one of the gems, a large diamond about the size of a golf ball, she flung it as hard as she could at the bear.

"Ouch!" The bear exclaimed, looking over at her with an expression that was somewhere between happy to see her and deeply annoyed.

She hadn't identified him yet but she realized from the 'ouch' that he must have been one of the talking bears, probably meaning no harm to Lucy, only to the dwarf. Blushing slightly from embarrassment she called out, "Sorry!"

The bear lifted his paw to swat Nikabrik with, he would have done so already but he feared hitting Lucy by mistake and had to be more careful about which way he aimed.

This caused Nikabrik to launch into a full-on panic screaming, "Kill me last! Kill me last! Kill me last!"

The bear hesitated and Nikabrik almost dared to hope he still hadn't found the strength to do away with him just yet until he finally spoke directly to the dwarf. "It ends now."

"No!" screamed the dwarf. "It will never end, the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' will rise and defeat you, you'll never win! You fays wont have the power ever again! Your time is up, we will destroy you!"

" _Nobody_ hurts my girls." The bear said in a tone so serious, final, and deadly that no one upon hearing it would dare to protest or argue. His paw went flying as swiftly as an arrow, killing Nikabrik instantly.

"Why-" Lucy blinked up at the bear for a moment before Susan grabbed her arm-not the one Nikabrik had hurt-and started running, trying to get off the road, back in the direction of the cottage.

"Wait! Susan, Lucy, I'll come with you." A voice behind them called out.

This time, Susan recognized Peter's voice and stopped mid-step, giving poor flustered, traumatized Lucy a chance to catch her breath. Slowly, both girls turned around to see the bear coming towards them. The strange thing was that he looked different, very different, smaller somehow. The closer he got to them the more he seemed to look less and less like a bear until at last he appeared to be nothing but a slim figure, presumably a young man, covered in a large winter fur coat. When he stood panting at their side, the coat seemed to become more like a cape held together with a copper clasp; two white hands came out from under the cape and undid it. Flinging it off his shoulders, he revealed himself.

Susan felt faint from the mere shock of it all and had to steady herself on her little sister's shoulder for a moment, trying to remember to take deep slow breaths. Standing in front of them was what looked to her like a young Narnian lord dressed in a glistening golden tunic.

The corners of his mouth turned upwards. "Hullo."

"Who are you?" Susan blurted out, taking a step backwards.

"Susan," there was a ring of laughter in his voice. "It's me, Peter!"

"Don't be sil-" she started to argue but when she looked a little harder at his face, she realized he was telling the truth; whatever form he was in, surely this was the very same person who had been with them that winter. "Oh, it _is_ you!"

"Why did you kill the dwarf?" Lucy had to ask. If he had been protecting her, couldn't he have done it without killing anyone? She just hated the idea of someone having to lose their life because of her.

"I had to." Peter shook his head sadly as if he wanted her to understand but didn't expect her to. "He...did something to me...a long time ago...well, not just to me...but...it's sort of hard to explain...and then you...and well...I..."

Peter's stammering was cut short by the sound of hoof-beats; a unicorn with two riders covered by black cloaks-one of whom Lucy already knew was Edmund-on his back, came galloping towards them. The first rider, dropped from the saddle and pulled his hood off, that one was Edmund. He seemed a little surprised to see his brother in his true form instead of a bear-unlike Susan and Lucy, he knew what that really meant.

The other rider, Eustace, came down and took off his hood, too. Bowing to Peter, he said, "Your majesty!"

" _Majesty_?" Susan nearly choked on her own spit.

"You were finally able to bring yourself to kill him, Pete?" Edmund spoke the words like a question, but somehow Lucy got the idea that it wasn't actually one that needed a full answer.

"He was hurting Lucy." Peter explained, gently reaching over and nudging Lucy's slightly bruised wrist forward.

"That little son of a-" Edmund started before a sharp glare from Susan shut him up. He was instantly at Lucy's side, examining her hurt arm. "Lucy, are you alright?"

"I-I think so..." said Lucy, her eyes filling up with tears, though she wasn't sure why.

"All right, what is going on here?" Susan folded her arms across her chest, arching both of her eyebrows.

"The griffin warned us that Nikabrik was on this road and we were a little concerned; or rather, he told Eustace," Edmund nodded over him. "who came into the market place to tell me. We...we didn't think this would happen though...Peter could never actually bring himself to kill him before."

"What will the rest of the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' do now that their leader is dead and Peter is himself again?" Eustace wondered aloud, nervously fidgeting with his fingers.

"I don't know." Edmund had to admit, looking very grim, although a little less grave than he normally would have in that sort of situation, pleased about his brother's freedom from the enchantment after so long.

"Someone had better start explaining!" Susan insisted, stamping her foot and looking over at Peter sort of shyly, unable to look quite as firm as she meant to.

When he caught her looking over at him, he got this sort of demented-looking smile on his face and proceeded to stand there beaming back at her wordlessly.

Needless to say, it appeared that it was up to Edmund to try and explain everything to Susan and Lucy. "Well you see, it's like this-"

Before he could tell them the whole truth about what they had all been through and why all of these weird things were happening, a group of dwarfs, the very same ones who had wanted to kill Lucy that night in the forest, came out of one of the caves. At once, they saw all the jewels on the ground and Nikabrik's dead body laid out a little ways away from them.

Edmund stood protectively in front of Lucy; Peter, in front of Susan. Eustace stood at their left, holding his sword out a little unsteadily. The unicorn snorted and stomped his left front hoof on the road threateningly.

The dwarfs pulled out their swords and took a step closer to them. "The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!"

"The dwarfs are for a piece of fruitcake." Eustace muttered sarcastically under his breath.

"The curse is over," Edmund told them, scowling at Ginarrbrik who stood at the front of the line. "Peter is the rightful high king over Narnia, you know that, I know that, so let's drop this little charade before someone gets hurt."

"Your brother killed Nikabrik, we want repayment." wheezed Ginarrbrik. "Give us the rings and spare our skins and perhaps we will call it even."

Peter laughed bitterly. "Taken leave of your senses, have you? Ginarrbrik, only a fool would let something like that fall into the hands of someone like you."

"I know Nikabrik must have had 'em, that's why you killed him, right?" One dwarf in the middle demanded.

"No, he killed him to protect Lucy." Edmund told them. "You and your children's children will look and look for those rings and you will _never_ find them; Nikabrik never did."

"What rings?" Susan tapped the back of Peter's shoulder to get his attention. "What are they talking about?"

"It's a long story, I'll tell you all about it later, I promise." Peter whispered shortly, not because he was cross but because he wasn't sure of the exact moment the dwarfs might try a full-on attack. Certainly they had the advantage of greater numbers on their side at the moment.

Thinking quickly of a way to protect at least one of the sisters, Edmund flung his black cloak all the way back on, stationed himself behind Lucy-leaving her vulnerable for no more than a half-second, and threw the edges of the cloak over her shoulders. When he was ready, the cloak turned him invisible. Because Lucy was under there with him, she seemed to vanish, too.

"Where's Lucy?" cried Susan, frightened that the dwarfs might have somehow done something to her sister and the dark-haired boy, though what they could have possibly done from that distance away from them, she didn't know.

"She's fine." Peter whispered in her ear, wishing he had an invisibility cloak, too. The only one he had was the bear-skin cape laid out on the ground a few feet away which he doubted that would be of any help whatsoever. "My brother's got her."

Meanwhile, in the background, Edmund was leading Lucy over to the unicorn, careful not to let the cloth of the cloak slide off her shoulders even a little bit.

Unwilling to wait any longer, the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' charged. Peter took out his sword (which was the finest one Susan had ever seen before, inlaid with jewels on the hilt and a saying about the great Lion Aslan carved into the blade in deep gold-leaf lettering) and started defending himself, Eustace (who's cloak, although it looked rather like Edmund's was not the same and could not turn him invisible), and Susan. He was swift of foot and clearly a fantastic swordsman-he must have been taught very well-more than equal to any of the dwarfs. However, they were soon out numbered and there was no hope of Peter and Eustace winning. The dwarfs, unfortunately knowing Peter's weakness, didn't keep on attacking them, rather they cleverly steered them away so that Susan was briefly unprotected. Vulnerable for one second, then two. A minute, two minutes, three. At last, when the opportunity arose, four of them grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down into one of the caves.

By then the unicorn was already thudding away with Edmund and Lucy on his back, leaving only a distraught Peter and Eustace behind.

Susan screamed, trying desperately to cling onto the sides of the cave so as not to get pulled all the way in, but she couldn't hold out for long.

Peter called after her but there was nothing he could do, the dwarfs circled around him and Eustace prevented either of them from rushing towards the cave and rescuing her.

Edmund had managed to see all of this happening over his shoulder and felt sick to his stomach. There was nothing he could have done; the cloak hadn't been big enough for three and if he hadn't grabbed Lucy and ran off, both sisters would have likely been captured. Still, he felt more than a little guilty about his choice. Choosing between two people you care about is never easy but Edmund's conscience plagued him with the notion that perhaps he had selected Lucy to be the saved one simply because he liked her a little better. And that wasn't at all fair to poor Susan who must have been absolutely terrified when the dwarfs grabbed her and took her away.

When they were far away, deep in the forest (of course the unicorn hadn't stopped at the cottage, but had continued right on passed it) Edmund was finally able to safely take the cloak off of himself and Lucy.

Weeping hard as she was helped down onto a moss-covered boulder, Lucy looked at Edmund with so much fear that he nearly hated himself for being part of the cause of it. "What's happening? Why are they doing this?"

Unable to do anything else, Edmund sat on the boulder with her and put his arms around her shoulders. She leaned forward and sobbed into his chest.


	12. Rings

Even though a person will hardly believe this to be true when they find their hearts broken and are weeping uncontrollable rivers, it is a physical impossibility to cry for ever. Eventually even the saddest of people have to run out of tears and the strength it takes to keep them flowing down their cheeks, rolling off the tips of their chins. It was like that for Lucy now; her tears finally stopped coming and she caught her breath again, looking up over at Edmund who had sat beside her, holding her until she was finished.

"Ed-" Her voice was hoarse from all her crying and it took a moment for it to return to her. "Why are they trying to hurt us? Why really happened to you and Peter...that dwarf..." She shook her head, her mind was reeling. Poor, poor Susan! Oh, they had to rescue her, they just _had_ to! But how could she fight not even knowing what she was up against?

Wearing an expression that was an odd combination of guilt, compassion, and piteousness, Edmund got off of the rock, down onto his knees, and took her hand in his as if he was about to propose marriage.

"Lucy, I think you need to know the truth now." He said gravely, squeezing her hand lightly but with a firm, comforting grip. "About everything; about Peter and me and the dwarfs...all the things you don't understand just yet...we-I can't hold off from explaining it any longer, you need to know."

Lucy found herself unable to say anything back; she stared wide-eyed at him, waiting.

The tale that Edmund then proceeded to tell her was, without a shadow of doubt, the strangest story she had ever heard-or even imagined in all of her life. She had heard many fire-side tales in her life, she had known of fairy-stories, but none of them had been quite like this-so impossible, so horribly fantastic, and yet, real, as real as Lucy herself was.

It had all started at the very beginning of their world when Aslan the great Lion sang Narnia into existence. In a new world, anything will grow, even a tune. And the Lion's tune, as elegant a seed as there ever was, grew and became things. Grass and trees all the colours and shades of chocolates and emeralds, deserts that shone gold like the sun, underground realms dark like a night sky without stars-save for the diamonds glittering above some of the mines, and in the east-facing the eastern sea which shinned like a cornflower embedded with thousands of crystals floating upon the waves breaking on the surface-there came to be a castle, the capitol of all of Narnia, Cair Paravel.

Then came the creatures, the unicorns, the white stags, the talking beasts, and the non-talking beasts. After that came the half-beasts; the centaurs and the fauns and the satyrs and others of their kinds. Last, there were the dryads-forming in the deep saps and cores of their trees, the dwarfs, and the fays.

"The sort of creatures you humans would call, 'fairies'." Edmund put in here, interrupting the flow of his story for a short moment before going on.

One family in the species of fays, was given a special privilege: to rule as royalty over all of Narnia under the condition of course that they remained good and just rulers, which they did. Also, the others of their race, ranking just a little above the noblest of the fauns, centaurs, dwarfs, and talking beasts, became courtiers to them. Most of the Narnians were pleased with Aslan's choice because they knew the royal family to be the most honourable, not only of the fays, but of all the creatures in Narnia at the time. However, some of the dwarfs-it was rumored-resented them, thinking that each group ought to have their own king. Dwarfs for dwarfs, beasts for beast, unicorns for unicorns, fays for fays, dryads for dryads, and so on and so forth. This resentment would not come to an head for a while, but it would return and attempt to destroy them eventually.

In time, the royal fay King and Queen had children and later, grandchildren who, in turn, also grew up and had children. For great grandchildren, there were two sons, the eldest was called Peter and the younger, Edmund. They grew up well in the court and were happy, playful, handsome, over-all good children-though they fought from time to time, as all brothers will.

Things went on peacefully until one day, a visitor arrived from a land called Calormene, across the vast desert; a very strange sort of person who appeared to be half-bird, half-fay (or else, human, though whichever it really was, none could be sure of).

This thing, who called himself Tash, came carrying a 'gift' for the two young fay princes who stood before him, gaping in a strange amazed sort of horror at the ugly, horrid voiced, bird-thing standing before then with a large cloth over one hand-claw. When he removed the cloth, he revealed a large silver looking-glass. When a person peered in this mirror, he saw glimmers of other worlds and universes and in-between places reflected in the reflections of his or her own eyes. It was a marvelous thing and many creatures were delighted with it, coming to Cair Paravel from all over just to plead for a chance for a brief glimpse into it-requests which, the two princes, never imagining any harm resulting from it, readily granted.

When the talking beasts looked into it, they saw other beasts from other worlds, apparently dumb and witless, forced to work very hard, and were grateful for the good lives they themselves enjoyed in Narnia. If any of them had once harbored envy towards his neighbor, it was gone, the more important things realized; just by looking into their own eyes.

The fays saw things, too, and they learned empathy-they learned to weep over worlds that had wars and battles and famines, things they had not themselves had the misfortune of suffering yet.

Persons who thought themselves better than others, looked at the reflection the looking-glass placed in their own eyes and became humbled instead of haughty. Many who had been afraid and timid, discovered that they were really brave after all. The weakest souls found that they were actually strong; what an amazement!

However, Tash, was not at all a good creature, he was wicked and though he had, by some odd event, managed to create something good out of his evil self, he had made it flawed. It did not only show the things that could heal, the truths of perception in new light, but also bad things-it could cause goodness to rot away just as it had taken badness away from some. It only needed the right person and circumstances. And that person was a black dwarf; he went by the name of Nikabrik.

"Nikabrik, now, he's the one you and your sister saved three times and Peter killed. Ginarrbrik, the second in command-well, I guess he's fully in charge now that Nikabrik is dead-of the dwarfs that kidnapped Susan, is his first cousin." Edmund had to stop the story momentarily again.

When Nikabrik had looked into the mirror, he'd seen other worlds with other sorts of dwarfs who still, somehow, bore a resemblance to himself and his Narnian companions, and greed itself came to be reflected in his eyes. He dreamed of moving a semi-anarchy through not only Narnia, but the other worlds as well, making himself a sort of pirate-like ruler over these bands of disloyal dwarfs he would stir up. From the kings he would over-throw, he imagined he could take gold, jewels, and other valuables and make himself rich. If anything should ever go wrong in the multi-universed world he set up for himself, he could hide in a pleasure palace in a mountain in some other lesser-known world (for there had to be an endless number), free from harm or blame and completely surrounded and engulfed by wealth. Not all of the leaders of the other worlds seemed to be as rich and well-off as the two fay princes were-so he would start in this world first, over-turning their rule and robbing them.

And so, that wicked, greedy, delusional dwarf misguided others, including his cousin, into joining him in his conquests to 'rescue' the dwarfs from supposed 'mistreatment'. The group came up with a saying which they cried out so often that they became known by it: 'the dwarfs are for the dwarfs'. Of course, some dwarfs were clever enough to see through his promises, they remembered that their loyalty had to be to the fays because Aslan had given them the rulership. Among these, was a red dwarf called Trumpkin and his elder brother Duffle (who, sadly, fell in battle and died shortly before he could take his stand, so Trumpkin had to speak for his loyalty).

The biggest threat to the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' was the eldest fay prince, Peter. For Aslan had once said, when he was no more than an infant, that he would grow up to be the greatest, kindest, bravest, most generous king Narnia had ever known; more magnificent even than those who had come before him, a high king. Moreover, when Prince Peter was still a very young boy-his brother Edmund being no more than a couple of years old himself-an elderly centaur, known for his great wisdom, came in and spoke to the eldest royal lad and after an hour declared that though he would be the head ruler over all of Narnia one day, he would not forget his brother to whom he would give a title to be a king under him. So, needless to say, the dwarfs didn't like that, Peter was in their way, he was their rival.

Their plan to rid themselves of him was simple and terrible, they went to a place up in the north where the world's first and only wicked fay, a terrible woman called Jadis whom the fays had banished and sentenced to life in exile, lived. The rumor was that she had become something of a witch though no one had wanted to get close enough to her to prove or disprove this so it grew like an urban legend. By the time the dwarfs reached her ice palace, Jadis had evidently already died, but some of her old things remained. Most of these things were considered quite useless and the dwarfs found themselves being rather put-out with this 'white lady' for not leaving anything decent behind for them to loot. Just as they were about to leave her palace and spit angrily upon her corpse (it is said that one of them got ahead of himself and actually did so but that was never proven) they discovered a jar containing a terrible transforming powder that could change a person's shape so that they could not return to themselves until the proper conditions were met.

They slipped some of the powder into Peter's drink one night when he was feasting with his parents and brother in Cair Paravel's great dinning hall; turning him into a large black bear. Nikabrik openly showed himself to be the traitor who had done this, and launched an attack on the hall, killing the parents of the fay brothers (as well as a good many of the courtiers who'd tried to stand in his way), but leaving the young brothers alive. The condition was this: Peter would have to kill Nikabrik with his own paw in order to regain all that he had lost; his throne, the human-like form he'd had as a fay, the rights to his treasures, all of it. As it was, he could not bring himself to kill the traitorous dwarf (not even to avenge the death of his parents could he harm the dwarf in battle-free cold blood) and no one else dared try to kill him themselves lest Peter be trapped as a bear for ever.

There was one more matter of concern that the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' had; how could they actually get into other worlds? Taking over Narnia would be a good first step, but if they ever wanted to get beyond that, how could they go about it? Tash's mirror could only show parts of the other words, it couldn't actually _send_ anyone into them.

The situation might have been impossible if not for the acts of a certain royal fay who, against Peter's orders, had some special green and yellow rings made that could transport a person into different worlds. This fay had some of the rings put into a box and sent into a country in another world; a country called England. The box was given to a woman who had some fay blood in her called Mrs. Lefay, intrusting her with the proper plans for it. Sadly, she turned out to be unworthy of her task-always getting herself into all kinds of trouble-and eventually just grew tired of being the keeper of the box and gave it to her godson, Andrew, telling him to destroy it. He didn't follow her instructions but rather, saved the box for many years before kidnapping his young nephew and a little girl who was friends with him and forcing them to try on the rings and see what happened (he himself wouldn't directly touch anything enclosed in a box that had been owned by a woman with fay blood).

The nephew and his friend ended up in Narnia, but not alone; there had been many rings in the box and somehow or other, Andrew had gotten careless and rested them on the windowsill. The rings fell and were launched onto the streets of England. Many people who found them put them on and were transported into Narnia. A war of great confusion was started and Aslan had to come and put an end to it. All humans (or as he called them, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve) were welcome to stay in Narnia if they would live peacefully but any who refused were to be sent back to their own world under the impression that their whole adventure had been naught but a simple dream.

The bear, his brother Edmund, the dwarf Trumpkin, and the other loyal courtiers in hiding were put in a hidden manor that no one else knew how to reach and fell into an enchanted sleep for many years. It was the same with the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' only their sleep befell them underground. It was said that neither side would awaken for a few generations so that Narnia could fully recover from the war that had nearly destroyed it. In the meantime, Andrew's nephew (who was called Digory) and his friend (who's name was Polly) were given the right to rule over Narnia as King and Queen and their children would all have the throne after them under the condition that when the time came, their future offspring would give the country back to the fay brothers. Their family's royal titles were to be only temporary. That was the reason those whom the human often called 'the first' king and queen of Narnia often went by 'Lord Digory' and 'The Lady Polly' so as to show their respect and knowledge that the rulership was not truly theirs.

As for the rings, most of them were taken away by Digory, carried off on a great galleon and dropped at the bottom of the ocean (this might explain why England suddenly found several new breeds of fish quite unexpectedly). The fay who had made the rings had kept four; one green and one yellow for himself and one green and one yellow for his brother.

"So now you see what Nikabrik wanted-what Ginarrbrik _still_ wants." Edmund finished gravely, trying to hold back a few tears that were pricking his eyes, not quite sure he wanted Lucy to see him cry. "Our time to awaken came and we have come back into Narnia, a land filled with these strange humans, so different from the one we used to know."

"So the current king and queen, Helen and Frank, came from Digory and Polly but _they_ came from some other worldly country called England?" Lucy asked him, trying to make sure she understood. "And Peter had the rights to the throne all this time?"

Edmund nodded and gulped back the lump in his throat. "That's right."

"I feel so sorry for you." Lucy told him in a low whisper. "You were just going about your life and those dwarfs attacked your brother...you were innocent."

At this, Edmund could no longer hold back his tears or keep the lump at bay. "Oh, Lu, even I am not innocent-Peter, maybe-but not me."

Lucy caught the glimpse of guilt and shame in his expression. "What happened?"

"Haven't you guessed?" Edmund bit his lower lip and them released it to reassume speaking when Lucy shook her head no. "I was the one who made those rings."

Hearing this, Lucy almost wanted to pull her hand away from his. It couldn't be true! Why would Edmund have defied, even possibly betrayed, his brother like that? He wouldn't have, would he? But she could tell by the pained look on his face that he wasn't lying.

"When I looked into that mirror Tash gave us, I saw possibility, not for riches or power, but to help those in the other worlds." Edmund pulled her hand a little closer to him, like a drowning person clinging desperately to his only hope, and tried to explain his actions. "I thought if I could make a way for them to come to us, they could visit and learn lessons about life and then take those lessons back home with them. I thought it would enrich all of the worlds. England, now that was my first goal, I wanted to start there. That was why I sent Trumpkin out of this world to find Mrs. Lefay and give her the box, so that she could take the rings to those who needed them the most. I was thinking mostly of children, they were the ones who hadn't had a chance to be hardened by that world yet, I was certain she would give some rings to them."

Lucy understood where he was coming from, she could tell how badly he had wanted to help, she saw the sadness in his eyes as he recalled his failure. Still, she couldn't help blurting out, "But Peter told you not to."

Edmund chuckled weakly. "Yes, I thought I could convince him afterwards that I had done right...the only thing I proved in the end was that I wasn't a good subject, a good prince, or a good brother."

"You didn't mean any harm and it wasn't your fault that the dwarfs turned Peter into a bear." Lucy gently reminded him.

"My actions still resulted in..." he closed his eyes tightly and shook his head three times to clear it before opening them again. "...it was horrible, but we have a chance to end it now. Peter is himself again and if we can save your sister, all shall be restored."

"I see." said Lucy, picturing Susan in her mind and-thinking of her elder sister-suddenly feeling small, weak, and helpless.

"That's why I started watching over children, you know; or rather, you and your sister. I took a sort of liking to the two of you and thought by watching over you, I could make up for all the wrong that I did." Edmund told her. "Not to mention, give Peter a place to stay in the winter when traveling to the hidden manor would have been difficult."

From behind them, they then heard the voices of Peter and Eustace coming to find them. As soon as Lucy caught sight of Peter, looking so broken and powerless-his face stained by tears and his golden tunic partially torn and soiled-she let go of Edmund's hand, ran up to him and grabbed onto his arm exclaiming that she knew the whole story and that she was so sorry all of this had happened to him and his family.

He smiled down at her as her arms embraced his. "Dear little Lu."

"We _can_ defeat them and save Susan." Lucy's voice suddenly became strong and determined, her weakness and fear slowly draining away as she looked upon the rightful high king's face and knew he was meant to win. "You're the real king and he's nothing!"

"In the name of Aslan, I will go down into their realms, rescue Susan, crush the rebels, and reclaim my kingdom. Either that or I will die trying." Peter announced, looking up at the green-blue sky above the canopied forest, his fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword.

"Peter's right!" exclaimed Edmund, taking a step closer to Lucy. "We'll do this, even if we die trying."

Eustace looked discomfited. He wanted to save Susan and help Peter get his throne back, too, but still...! " _Die_? I don't want to die..."

"Come on, Eustace." Edmund came over and grabbed him by the shoulders, leading him along with them.

"Die?" Eustace repeated nervously, his eyebrows frowning deeply in his forehead.


	13. Husky

The world Susan was pulled down into was the darkest she'd ever imagined. Though it was still as much a part of Narnia as the cottage she called home, the forest she'd grown up playing with her little sister in, the villages she visited, and the air she breathed daily, it didn't feel at all like it. She couldn't decide if she was feeling too hot or else too cold. Part of her felt cold, cold and frightened. Yet at the same time, another part of her felt like it was burning up, bubbling over with outrage. How dare these strange dwarfs dare to lay a hand on her? What harm had she ever done them? Hadn't she saved their leader, not once, but _three_ times?

And it _hurt_ so much! They weren't at all gentle with their tugging; her head hit several rocks on the way down and she was nothing short of amazed that it wasn't cut open and bleeding, surely there had to be something wrong with it after being whacked all those times. Maybe that was it, perhaps she'd only gotten one really good collision with a rock and now her messed-up mind was playing a trick on her, making her think it was happening over and over again. The dwarfs' sharp, uneven nails dug through the thinner parts of her sleeves, right into her flesh, making her arms ache and throb.

When this strange journey down into the 'underworld' was complete, one of the dwarfs finally had the decency to light an oil lamp. This was done for their own sake and comfort but it relieved Susan, too. Up until that moment she had been wondering if perhaps one of the blows to the head had caused her to go blind. There seemed now to be nothing wrong with her vision, but she would have much rather have been blind as a bat safely back at Widow Pevensie's cottage than here with these wicked dwarfs and have the best vision in the world.

Tears filled her eyes. More than anything Susan wanted to be back by the fire while her mother told stories and her sister played games. Oh, how long ago it seemed when Lucy had teased Susan while she'd been busy mending that sack...oh, and it was the first time she had ever met Peter, too! That night when he'd come in to warm himself by the fire. Strangely enough, the pictures that her mind showed her of that wonderful past winter, did not show Peter as a bear, in spite of the fact that that was what he had been. In her mind's eye she saw him as the young man she'd seen that very day in the golden tunic. How clearly she could see herself sitting by the hearth and talking with him, watching him laugh with her mother and entertain Lucy on chilly nights. She could also imagine him with her in other seasons as well, spring and summer and autumn with the leaves changing colours in the forest...how horrid the thought that she might never see him-or Lucy-again was!

"Oh, is the pretty lady uncomfortable?" Ginarrbrik taunted, noticing the tears in her eyes.

Susan wasn't given a chance to answer; the dwarfs leading her dragged her down what felt like a small flight of clay-stone steps and thrust her down into a small rocking chair that she was worried would break underneath her because she was too tall and wide for it.

"What are we going to do with her, Ginarrbrik?" one of the dwarfs asked, tilting his head at her, his lips curling upwards into a sort of half-sneer. "She's too tall to use as a decent slave down here...unless we only use her when we go out into the upper world again..."

"And have her rescued by those moronic fays!" Ginarrbrik wheezed crossly, frustrated with his companion for not thinking the matter all the way through. "Nonsense! I have a better idea."

A huddle was formed and some plans that Susan could not hear no matter how hard she strained her ears were discussed, and when they were finished a silver goblet studded with some sort of pale green gem stones was taken out of a nearby cupboard. Something white that looked rather like milk, only a little thicker and a tint cloudier, was poured into it from a large crystal pitcher. Then one of them took some sort of powder and dumped a few spoonfuls of it into the mix, stirring it well with a solid gold spoon-a teeny embedded diamond twinkling on top of the handle.

Ginarrbrik lunged at Susan's arm, pulled out her hand, and pushed her fingers open so that another dwarf could force her to hold the goblet. Susan decided to break it simply because it looked so expensive, but they were one step ahead of her and did not give any opportunities for her to do so.

"Drink it." They ordered harshly, not even bothering to sound persuasive.

"No!" Susan's voice burst from her. "I wont drink this...whatever it is...I want to go home!"

"After," One of them lied. "we'll let you go home after you drink it."

Susan grimaced at them disbelievingly. It was probably poisoned or something, only a fool would drink it. "No!"

Ginarrbrik smacked her hard across the face twice. "Drink it, human filth!"

Tears sprang up into Susan's eyes all over again but she held them back until the dwarfs were all bearded blurs, refusing to give Ginarrbrik the satisfaction. It was best not to speak at all if this was how they were going to treat her, she decided. A few tears did escape in spite of her best efforts and her eyes cleared a little, revealing that one of the dwarfs to the left was waving one of the small moveable oil lamps close to her hand threateningly. She didn't figure out what he meant to do until the lamp was tilted and the drop of burning hot oil landed on the back of her hand, scalding it. To hold back the scream that automatically prepared itself to erupt from her throat, Susan bit onto her lower lip. She clenched the mouth skin with her teeth harder and harder until she tasted blood and had no choice but to release it along with a sort of half-yelp.

"Drink it." Ginarrbrik said again, motioning his chin over at the dwarf with the oil lamp. "You'll have worse than that one little drop if you don't do as we say."

Nothing else for it, Susan-utterly terrified-nodded in agreement and took the goblet in her hands, having no intentions of breaking it now, and put it to her bleeding lips. The drink was sort of bland and not at all as creamy as it looked but it did taste faintly like very watery milk with some other after-taste she couldn't put a name to. Rather bitter and sharp on her tongue. When she had finished, her hand instantly went to her stomach; she felt like hurling but nothing would come up. Her eyes ached and her whole body felt like it was being pulled and compressed. Looking down, she caught sight of her hand before panicking and falling into a dead faint; it was smaller-much more like the hand she had had as a very small girl than the one she'd had two seconds ago-and it appeared to be turning a grayish colour.

Meanwhile, outside the dwarfs caves in the upper land of Narnia, were Peter, Lucy, Edmund, Jill, Trumpkin, a few other loyal fays amounting to about nine or so in all who-sad to say-did not really appear all that impressive, and Eustace who was wearing a scarlet gag over his mouth because everyone had gotten tired of listening to him whine about not wanting to die.

They were all wearing chain mail, helmets, and shoulder armour. Edmund, Peter, Trumpkin, and Eustace all had their swords. The supporting fays had long silver and gold spears which they held in a funny way that made them look strangely dryad-like. Lucy and Jill both had daggers on leather belts around the waist parts of their chain mail shirts, bows hanging over their left shoulders, and a quiver full of arrows on their right. Lucy didn't know quite as much about archery as Jill did but she and Edmund had managed to instruct her enough so that she wouldn't do anything too foolish or wobbly with them and she took to it well enough for the time being.

"I suppose we'll have to ungag Eustace now." Peter sighed, giving his supporters a slight eye-roll.

"Must we?" Edmund's nose turned up just a little as if he smelled something foul in the distance.

"I'm afraid the high king is right, your majesty." Trumpkin told him. "It's dangerous to have one on our side gagged going down into an enemy's pit. If he was captured or something, he wouldn't be able to cry out."

Edmund's shoulders slumped. "Oh well, guess that settles it then-come here, Eustace, Jill will help you off with that thing."

Eustace said something with the gag on which, even though they couldn't understand, did not seem at all polite, and glared over at Edmund crossly as Jill came forward to help him.

"Well, that's a fine way to treat a chap!" snapped Eustace the second his mouth was free again. "And another thing-"

Lucy stamped her foot, unable to simply stand there gaping down at the hole that led into the cave for even one second more. "Oh, do let's get on! Please, I just keep thinking about Susan; she's my sister, I _know_ her, she must be so scared down there all by herself with those horrible dwarfs."

Trumpkin, who was already liking Lucy very much and rather-secretly-hoping that one day Edmund might take her for a bride so that the royal court could see her more often, voiced his agreement. "Broomsticks and bedbugs! Lucy is right, how can we stay up here bickering like a bunch of gutter children when there is a lady in captivity?"

Peter's heart skipped a beat with worry. What were they doing to her down there? What if she was hurt or-as likely as not-threatened? He wondered if she was tied up or in chains before shaking his head rather violently to get that image out of his mind, it was too painful to think of Susan suffering like that.

"You all know the plan," Edmund reminded the others in a firm, commanding voice that rather impressed Lucy because it was so different from the almost-playful one he had used when revealing to her that the slash on his throat that night wasn't real. "this is not a killing raid; prisoners are preferred to death. Remember, we're only trying to rescue Susan-if we have to kill a few dwarfs, then we have to-but try to keep most of them alive unless it is completely unavoidable, alright?"

One of the fays seemed angered by this. "After all they've done, why should we show any mercy?"

"My good sir," said Peter in a reasonable, kingly voice. "they-wrongfully-claim the rulership of the fays to be cruel and tyrannical, do they not?"

"They do." The fay admitted gruffly but not meanly.

"Then to go down into their dominions and slaughter without reason, would only prove them right, would it not? By my word-and I am your king now, remember that-we should kill only Ginarrbrik, if anyone at all has to come to that. Nikabrik's influence was too strong on him, but even so if there was a way we didn't have to kill him in cold blood..." he let out a mournful sigh.

"Your majesty _is_ wise." The fay had to admit, shaking his head in admiration. "But I do not understand, why the change of heart in this backwards fashion? When you finally gave Nikabrik what he deserved, I thought-"

"You thought great folly." warned Peter, blinking in a half-stern half-sympathetic way. "I killed Nikabrik because I saw him hurting Lucy, and by the Lion's mane, if I catch a single one of those vile dwarfs in the act of harming Susan, I'll run my sword through them. But I wont kill in cold blood, sir, I wont."

Noticing the strained look on Lucy's face, Edmund reminded everyone to stop talking and to actually start walking into the mouth of the cave. It was dark and though they were all brave persons, they could not fully hold back a shudder as they passed through it. Even Trumpkin's shoulders seemed to give way for a moment before he gained control of himself and worked a hard expression back into his face.

The underground tunnel was dark and the only small torch they had dared to bring was carried by Trumpkin who would be the lest likely to be noticed and caught in this place-being a dwarf himself. The walls appeared to be made of dried mud and clay of a reddish-brown colour and were the sort that always seemed to be closing in on a person. Eustace, who was rather cluster-phobic, was nearly at the end of his rope and was only able to comfort himself with the thought that if nothing else, he was doing the right-even the brave-thing.

"Alright," Peter whispered to the fays. "Spread out, some of you go to the left and some of you go to the right, if you find her, bring her back here to the entrance. Oh, and don't stop looking until you do. I wont leave her in a place like this."

Edmund looked over at Jill and Lucy. "You two go with Eustace and Trumpkin down the long sort of tunnel corridor thataway." he pointed in the direction he wanted them to go in. "Lucy, hand on the hilt of the danger. Jill, arrow on the bow string, just in case...Eustace, just don't trip over anything and give yourself away...oh, and Trumpkin, guard the girls with your life."

"What about you and Peter?" Eustace wanted to know.

"We're going the other way in case there are some rooms further down. Susan is likely to be in a harder place to reach as opposed to an easy one. These dwarfs may be wicked but they aren't as stupid as I'm sure we'd all like to believe." Edmund winced, his brows arching nervously.

With those words the group split and went their separate ways. Peter looked anxiously over his shoulder, not liking the idea of letting Lucy out of his sight. Jill was easier, he cared about her enough but he'd also seen her fight in battles before-young though she was, Lucy was like a little sister or a daughter to him, watching her stalk off down into the dwarf-tunnels so bravely made his chest hurt and his throat close up.

"She'll be fine." said Edmund, keeping the fact that he, too, felt more than a little nervous about being separated from her in this place to himself. After rescuing her with the invisibility cloak, was he about to toss her right back into the hands of the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs'?

"She does have Jill and Trumpkin with her." Peter said, mostly to comfort himself, though it reassured Edmund, too.

"Come on, let's try that door over there." Edmund suggested, reaching for the stretched tree root that appeared to be a crude imitation of a long-handled doorknob.

Peter was about to follow him in when he suddenly got a strange feeling. The feeling that he simply _had_ to try the door six paces downwards as soon as possible; he followed his instinct, unable to stop himself or will his mind to stop reeling for a moment and calm down. While Edmund peered into the first door, Peter went off for that other one down six paces.

The room was lit by two small oil lamps that had been left out on a rather soil-stained, cracked, oak wood table in the centre. The faint rays it sent out on the walls showed no more than a few poorly made chairs and a few very well-made shields piled up in one corner. On the other side, there seemed to be nothing more than an animal cage made of thick wooden boards, unsanded sticks, and a metal door with bars.

Peter was just about to turn and leave, inwardly berating himself for being stupid enough to think this room would be of any help in his search for Susan-he had been so sure!-when he heard a whimper coming from the animal cage.

He knew he shouldn't waste time; he had to find Susan and get out as quickly as possible, but the poor animal sounded so upset and he himself remembered what it was like to be a beast-having hated nearly every second of his time as a black bear-so he could not leave without at least trying to help.

Trying to make his boots sound as light and unintimidating as possible, Peter crept over to the cage and bent down near the opening. Squinting hard, he saw the most perfectly beautiful husky dog he had ever seen. Somehow he knew right away that it was a female, perhaps from the very pretty-and strangely familiar-blue eyes that stared back at him with a mix of joy and amazement. Also, he knew that this couldn't be an ordinary dog because a normal dog with that sort of expression on its face would have been wagging its tail as likely as not. This dog seemed hardly even to recall or realize she had a tail to begin with.

"Peter!" the husky dog whisper-cried in a voice he recognized immediately, knowing now why her eyes looked so familiar.

"By the Lion!" He put his hand to his mouth to keep back a gasp. "Susan?"

The husky dog bared her teeth slightly, getting a little annoyed with him now for just standing there gaping at her. "Get me out of here!"

"Oh, right, sorry." Peter's hands fumbled over to the hinges as quickly as they could move, struggling to break them and lift them up. "How...?"

"I think it was something in that drink they gave me." the husky dog said in a weak, scared voice.

"You know, Susan, you really ought to have had more sense than to drink anything down here." said Peter, not because he was trying to be mean or unsympathetic but because he was frightened for her; he loved her.

"Well excuse me for deciding that having a drink was better than being smacked and having hot oil dropped on my hands." the husky dog's fair gray-almost silvery-brows frowned exasperatedly at him.

With the exception of when he'd killed Nikabrik over Lucy's safety, Susan had never seen Peter look so angry before, his face having gone pale, not with fear, but with intense rage. His voice was slow and dangerous and his hands were shaking furiously. "They. Did. _What_?"

The husky dog actually found herself shrinking backwards into the cage just a little, even though she knew it wasn't her he was mad at.

Finally, he got all of the hinges off and pulled the door open. Then she managed to step out into the room, stumbling a little due to not being used to walking on all floors.

"It gets easier." Peter tried to reassure her as kindly as possible.

Suddenly the husky dog let out a bay of pain; she could get out of the cage now that it was open, but she couldn't go far. There was a white-gold collar around her throat and it was held fast by a long iron chain.

Peter moaned and buried his face in his hands for a moment. This was going to be even harder than he had thought.


	14. Box

The iron chain continued to hold fast in spite of Peter's hardest pulling and tugging; if he missed anything about being a bear at that moment, it was the extra strength needed to pull chain off the wall. Nothing worked; he beat at the chain with the hilt of his sword, resulting in nothing more than nearly chipping part a scrap of iron not much thicker than a hair off. Ugh, useless! Peter shoved the sword back into it's scabbard and moaned. The husky dog gulped and looked up at him sadly.

"Don't worry, I wont leave you." Peter promised, reaching out and lightly stroking the side of the husky dog's head.

"Peter, I'm really scared." the husky dog admitted, tears shinning brightly in her eyes.

"You don't have to be." Peter whispered, squatting down as low as possible so that they were eye-to-eye. "I'm here now, I wont let them hurt you anymore..." his voice trailed off started quivering but the look on his face remained determined. "...we're going to get out of this just fine, I-I promise you, Susan."

"What about the chain?" her voice was so timid that it came across as almost childlike and only made Peter feel even more anger towards the dwarfs-to make such a mature, brave, grown-up, practical young woman speak like that out of fear; it was nothing short of utterly despicable!

"There must be some way to get it off." said Peter, looking around the room for anything that might be useful; a hot poker, a very strong hammer that could take more of a beating than his sword hilt could, anything really. But there was nothing. No fireplace-thus no need for a poker. No signs that any of the dwarfs used this room for blacksmithing or mining-thus no hammer.

The husky dog shifted her eyes every which way, too, but they didn't land on anything useful either. A mournful, hopeless sigh came from her throat and she looked up at Peter despairingly. Oh, what was the use? It seemed that there was no way he was going to be able to set her free and the longer he stayed there, the more chance he had of getting caught if one of the dwarfs came back in.

"Did you see how they got it on?" Peter tried, thinking that perhaps there might be a clasp or a weak link holding the stronger parts together.

The husky dog shook her head. "No, I was unconscious. They'd already locked me in here and left when I woke up." looking over at the pile of shields, she added, "I wouldn't have even known what they'd turned me into if I hadn't gotten a glimpse of my reflection when I moved a certain way in the cage."

There came the sound of the door opening and Peter stationed himself in front of the beautiful husky dog, pulling his sword out of his scabbard again, ready to fight for her if he had to.

A dwarf entered, but he wasn't one that Susan had seen before. He was a little taller and slimmer than Nikabrik and Ginarrbrik were, but not by much, and his long waist-length beard was red like a fox's tail. His face was physically just as strong, weather-beaten, and hard-looking as any of the others she had met that day, however, the expression on it was far gentler and did not come across as being quite as dangerous or bitter.

Peter started to lower his sword but he didn't relax it all the way until the dwarf had come close enough for him to be sure. "Trumpkin!" he breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, it's only you."

"Yes, just me. Lucy and Jill are right outside the door; for some reason we took a wrong turn in one of the tunnels that led us in circles until we ended up here and I thought I heard your voice so I came in to help." Trumpkin explained, noticing the husky dog now and raising an eyebrow curiously.

"I can't get this chain off." Peter told him shortly, not because he was cross but because he needed help and he knew that Trumpkin understood dwarf-made things better than he did.

"What a lovely dog." said Trumpkin, taking a step closer, approaching cautiously because he wasn't sure if it was wild or not.

"It's alright, she wont hurt you." Peter smiled weakly and put his hand on her back to steady himself as he started to stand up. "Look more carefully at her face."

Trumpkin did so and his eyes widened with shock and disgust at his fellow dwarfs. "This isn't a natural animal, she's like...well, like you were before..."

"It's Susan." his eyes closed for a moment and then opened again. "They made her drink something."

"They'll pay for this somehow, your majesty." swore Trumpkin, unable to tear his eyes away from the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' latest victim. How could they? Killing Peter and Edmund's parents had been wrong and teaming up with Nikabrik to take over Narnia had been very stupid of them, but kidnapping a human lady with no political power over them-her only connection to the fays being that Peter loved her-struck him as an even greater evil.

"We'll have to wait and see about that." Peter's eyes glanced nervously at the door, which was still open a crack. "Right now, let's just focus on getting Susan out of here."

"I think I can undo the chain, your majesty." Trumpkin said, nodding gravely in the direction of the back of the cage where the chain ended. "It's a dwarf-chain, only a full-blooded dwarf can remove it."

"Then in the name of Aslan, please be quick about freeing her." Peter said, breathing a sigh of relief thinking that perhaps everything was going to be alright after all. Yes, the dwarfs were still wicked and Susan was now a husky dog, but those things could hopefully be fixed in time. If there had been a way for his enchantment to end, there had to be a way for Susan's to be reversed, too, all he had to do was to figure out what it was. In the meantime, he decided he would get her back above ground and take her to the hidden manor, she would be safe there until everything was sorted.

Trumpkin bowed and put his hands on the chain, unhooking it as smoothly as if he was cutting off a sliver of butter. "There you are, dear."

"Thank you." Susan leaned against Trumpkin's side gratefully; if she had still been a human, she would have given him a hug and a kiss on the cheek to thank him. After meeting up with so many cruel, unreasonable, heartless dwarfs, it was good to know there were still good ones out there who were willing to help her.

Peter smiled as the husky left the red dwarf and came back over to him; she rested her head on his slightly bent knee before standing up straight on her four paws with a little help from Trumpkin who came forward again and took off the collar which was so heavy it had been throwing off her balance.

"Come on, let's get out of here." Trumpkin swung open the door and came face to face with Ginarrbrik and two dwarfs standing on either side of him.

"You have got to be kidding me." Peter muttered. The husky dog hid behind him and let out her most petrified whimper yet, her tail going right between her legs as if she really was just a tormented animal as opposed to the wonderful, brave-hearted lady he knew her to be.

"Thieves!" wheezed Ginarrbrik, breaking into a faint cough (I hope he chokes on his own spit and expires, thought Trumpkin). "First our unicorn and now our dog?"

"Dog indeed!" Peter snarled, looking so furious that Susan couldn't help but be glad that he was on her side; she would have hated to have to go up against someone who wore an expression like that on their face. "You think I don't know her for the maiden you kidnapped and transformed?"

Ginarrbrik didn't answer; rather, he took a step back to reveal two more dwarfs that they hadn't noticed before, standing behind Jill holding her wrists together and binding them tightly with thick black cords.

"Let her go!" the words burst from the husky dog; her tender heart couldn't bear to watch another girl get captured and hurt like she had been. "You already have me."

"No they don't." Peter cut in, glaring at Ginarrbrik, breathing so hard from his anger that his chest was heaving up and down while he spoke. "You don't have Susan and you wont have Jill either. Your game is up, let my courtiers and subjects free and even now I swear on the Lion himself I will show you mercy." Of course mercy was the last thing he wanted to show to those evil creatures after all the pain and suffering they had caused but he had to do what was right for Narnia; that was what kings did, they put the well-being of their country before their own hurt emotions.

"If anyone should be asking for mercy it's you, little king." sneered the first dwarf that was binding Jill's hands. "You're in our kingdom now."

"Ah, yes, perhaps we should show our guests how we deal with thieves and traitors here." Ginarrbrik's raspy laugh echoed off of the dark walls and seemed to hang over them long after he had shut his mouth.

Trumpkin shook his head and pulled out his sword. "I will fight to the death to save Narnia's true high king."

Eustace and Edmund arrived from another direction (having been lucky enough to have escaped and hid from the dwarfs who'd caught Jill and then having had the luck of meeting up with one another and getting something like a plan made, however rushed it was) and stood behind Trumpkin, pulling out their own swords and proceeding to fight. They rescued Jill and struck down a few of Ginarrbrik's best dwarfs, but then more came in greater numbers and things got harder.

At first, Edmund had managed to hold off anyone from getting close to Peter with a weapon but somehow a dwarf with a curved Calormene blade reached him and was about to strike when the husky dog finally regained a level of courage and bit him. He would have swiped her head clean off as repayment but Trumpkin hit him first and Peter kicked him down, knocking the blade out of his hand.

The fays that had come down into the dwarf's realm with Peter, heard all of the commotion and attacked. However unimpressive they'd seemed before, they all appeared to be decent fighters after all, protecting their kings and the Lady Jill from harm.

But where was Lucy during all of this? Put simply, she was lost. She had managed to get away unseen by the dwarfs-who'd through Jill was the only lady in the group-when they'd attacked and had been meaning to go look for Edmund. Unlike Eustace, she hadn't been fortunate enough to find him; rather, three or for wrong turns later, she was in a dark, sort of smelly, tunnel that at first seemed so small she wasn't sure she would be able to keep on going down it, but then it widened out further along.

When it came to an end, Lucy saw a filmy black curtain no thicker than a spider's web. She gently moved it aside and stepped through a round russet-coloured archway into a very strange little room.

In the centre, there was a very funny-looking sort of box-thing so large that a person could have fit into it-not just a dwarf person, either, it was big enough for humans or fays as well. The sides were see-through and reflective like the tinted shop windows in the near-by villages and the border was such an intensely dour shade of black that just looking at it almost made you feel like you were dying inside. In the very middle, there seemed to be a sort of split with a large square-shaped piece of crystal-glass that-to Lucy, at least-looked quite crude. There was a smaller box attacked to it with four holders, round like little rings. Lucy's eyes widened and she gulped, nearly stumbling over her own two feet as she took a step backwards; she thought she knew exactly what would fit in those holders.

From the corner of the room, there suddenly came a giggle. Startled, Lucy quickly spun around on her heel, her eyes locking with those of a very tipsy black dwarf holding a long-necked bottle of strong ale. He swayed back and forth and then muttered something about having to vomit before even noticing her presence.

"Hello there!" He swayed again, taking another sip from the bottle and going, "Ah!" six times in a row.

"Hullo." Lucy's voice came out slowly, not sure if he was dangerous or not.

A burp and then a slurred, "Excuse me...I'm drunk as a...now then, stop swaying so I can think of a simile, will you?" reassured her that this dwarf wasn't a real threat at the moment.

" _You're_ the one swaying." said Lucy.

"Am I now?" The dwarf's eyes widened with shock and he slapped his knee. "How about that!" he lifted the bottle up and took a long swig from it. "Sway, sway, go away..." he then proceeded to laugh and cackle to himself as if it was the most witty piece of poetry ever written. "Heh heh..."

Even though he was drunk-or perhaps even _because_ he was-Lucy decided to ask him about the box in the room and the dwarf's plans for the yellow and green rings. She had to repeat herself six times and the third time, he only looked down at his hands and said, "I have twenty fingers." but finally she managed to get an answer out of him. It was a terrible answer and Lucy felt her body shuddering violently with complete and utter horror as she learned all about it.

If and when the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' got those four rings, they planned to put them in the holders and power up the box; after putting Edmund on one side of the middle-glass and then Peter on the other.

"But what does it _do_?" Lucy had to know; she couldn't warn Peter and Edmund properly if she didn't even know for sure what the dwarfs meant to do to them.

"It throws them into separate worlds at the same exact time." the dwarf burped and wiggled his arms in the air like a child playing catch with a toy ball.

Lucy crinkled her forehead; she didn't quite understand what good it would do the dwarfs. Yes, sending Peter and Edmund out the Narnian universe would benefit them, but something about the way the drunk dwarf was saying, 'separate worlds at the same time' made her sense that there was more to it than just that.

"I can burp the entire Archenland anthem!" the dwarf announced randomly, beaming up at Lucy rather idiotically.

She ignored that and asked, "But why would they want to throw them into separate worlds? Wouldn't it be easier to throw them into the same one, killing two birds with one stone?"

"Don't know much about fays, do you, young one?" he slurred, blinking up at her and sighing deeply. "So young and beardless, yet so freakish tall for your age and no one's explained it to you, poor little dwarf-child."

So that's why he hasn't attacked me, Lucy realized-everything starting to make just a little bit more sense now, he's so intoxicated that he thinks I'm a dwarf myself!

He prattled on, "You see, fay brothers-usually twins, but not always-have an interesting sort of connection not really found in brothers of other species."

For some reason, Lucy's felt her hands shaking and her lips trembling, already feeling afraid for the royal fay brothers. "What sort of connection?"

"Well..." the dwarf rolled his eyes and burped twice before going on. "I don't really understand the whole gist of it myself...but I know it weakens 'em a bit when one of them travels into another world leaving the other behind 'ere in Narnia..." He burped again. "That's why Edmund sent Trumpkin to give the box to Mrs. Lefay instead of going himself...didn't much like the thought of being all weakly and stumbling around that new world till he got used to it, I guess."

"But what has that got to do with _that_?" Lucy pointed over at the horrid box which seemed now to be looming over them like death itself.

"You're not very bright, are you?" he giggled merrily and tossed the bottle back up facing downwards so that the last drops of alcohol could fall into his mouth-he was so tipsy that they mostly just dampened his beard. "Think about it, if it weakens them when one leaves our world without the other, what do you think would happen to them if they were _both_ being pulled out in opposite directions at the same time, eh?"

Involuntarily, Lucy's hand flew to her mouth. The dwarfs meant to kill them by putting them in that box and making them weaker and weaker until they expired!

The dwarf realized his ale bottle was empty. "Hey! Someone's gone and drunk all my ale!"

I have to warn Peter and Edmund, Lucy's mind raced-she had to get to them before it was too late.

Suddenly the dwarf started crying into his sleeve. "Nobody loves me." tears streamed down his face like rain for a moment while he sobbed about the injustices of life and love and death and ale-thieves until he suddenly passed out, snoring on the floor.

At least it would be easier for Lucy to get out without the drunken dwarf asking questions-or so she'd thought before the curtain was suddenly pulled aside again and Ginarrbrik stormed in. His dwarfs having defeated and captured the fays-in spite of their best efforts-having tied up the survivors. The husky dog had another heavy collar and chain she was being led in by; cords were tied around her mouth to form a muzzle so she couldn't try to bite any of them. Trumpkin was in chains, too, and the other dwarfs were spiting on him, calling him a traitor.

As for Peter and Edmund, Lucy-who had just gotten a chance to hide in the corner of the room so that Ginarrbrik hadn't seen her-watched in horror as they were lifted into the box, one on each side of the middle-glass.

They don't have the rings, Lucy reminded herself-trying to keep from crying out loud, they can't do anything to them without the rings, they're just sitting in a box...they're going to be alright.

Trumpkin was saying very nearly the same thing to the dwarf closest to him, but in a very different tone. That dwarf, however didn't seem upset or taken back in the least. Ginarrbrik wore a dangerously secretive smile on his face.

After a moment of silence, he wheezed, "Did you know that moles don't have very good eyesight?"

Edmund scowled out at him through the tinted sides of his half of the box.

"You know we have some red dwarfs on our side, still, and what's to stop a mole on your side from mistaking one of ours for Trumpkin?" laughed the dwarfs.

"So that's what you did with the rings isn't it? Nikabrik couldn't find them because you hired the moles who worked in your apple orchard back at Cair Paravel to burry them." Ginarrbrik's smile widened until it seemed long enough to connect both of his ears together. "And so I sent one of my dwarfs-while you were all too busy planning a rescue-to go to the moles and say you needed them back...poor little things, they didn't know, didn't know..." his voice echoed and became more sing-song like. "I knew everything because moles come underground and they sing like nightingales when they mistake us for persons in your-humph-majesty's army...of course, I had just put the pieces of this puzzle you set out for us together mere moments after capturing the human lady...not bad timing, huh?"

"You'll never get away with this!" cried Jill, trying-and failing-to free herself from the dwarfs who had re-captured her. "Never!"

"See, I thought Nikabrik would have found them and that's what threw me off, but when you said he hadn't...well...it occurred to me that the one place you wouldn't expect us to look was the one place we ourselves know so well, underground." Ginarrbrik ignored Jill and laughed out the rest of his explanation wildly.

Lucy's heart beat like a drum...so they _did_ have the rings after all? No, it had to be a bluff, it just _had_ to! Mere hours before, they'd been asking about them. How could fate be so cruel as to let them get their way so quickly?

Ginarrbrik took something out of a leather pouch; four glittering rings, two yellow and two green. "The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!"

Peter gulped and gave one last broken glance through his half of the side-glass to his dear courtiers before letting his gaze shift over to the husky dog, he wanted to meet her eyes one more time.

"I'm sorry..." Peter mouthed to her, knowing that he had failed and broken his promise that everything would be fine. Everything was ending; this was it, the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' had won. "I'm so sorry."

The rings were slipped into the holders and the sides of the box began to flash white-blue like starlight; Edmund winced and pulled his knees to his chest.

Peter let out a groan and kicked at the bordering panels; trying in vain to crack them open.

Like a sudden burst of lightning, the middle-glass started flashing yellow and green. First, Peter's side was yellow and Edmund's was green, then it switched. They could see the two coloured lights sliding down side by side, one going on top of the other. Both felt a sudden sharp tugging at the back of their tunics.

Edmund's face went ghostly pale almost immediately and his eyes started to look glazed seconds later.

Realizing what was happening to his brother on the other side of the middle glass, right before his own aching, tired eyes, Peter could no longer calmly accept defeat. "No! Ed!"

"Pete," he thought he heard his brother's voice croak faintly for a moment-though it could hardly be heard over his own shouting-before his eye-lids started to get lower, beginning to close.

In spite of the fact that he felt like he was being ripped apart, Peter mustered up the last of his strength and pounded his fists on the middle-glass. "Edmund, stay awake, whatever you do, don't go to sleep!"

On the other side of the middle-glass, Edmund's lips quivered. "I'm trying...I just feel so weak..."

Peter pressed the soles of his boots against the middle-glass and pushed with all his might. It wouldn't break and the flashing lights made his feet hurt, even with his shoes on. He happened to look away from his brother over to Ginarrbrik. "Stop it! Turn the thing off, please! He's dying."

Ginarrbrik shrugged his shoulders. "And we win, funny how that works, isn't it?"

Peter was starting to fade a little himself now; his cheeks lost their colour and he was beginning to feel rather light-headed. There was a sharp buzzing in his ears, like a thousand flies getting caught in them at the same time. Now he started to labor for breath as the tugging became even more intense.

As for Edmund, his eyes were now shut all the way and he seemed to be having trouble holding his head up.

Lucy felt that she must do something but her legs and arms were paralyzed with fear; she told them to leap up and pull the rings out of the holders, but they wouldn't listen. They felt as useless as jelly.

There was no longer any screaming or kicking coming from Peter; he was so desperate for air now that his mouth hung open like a cod fish and he appeared to be hyperventilating.

Unable to bear seeing him like that, Lucy's eyes flickered over to Edmund. He was even further gone than his brother. Unable to fight anymore, his body gave into sleep completely. His head fell over to one side, resting helplessly on his shoulder.

It was seeing this that somehow gave Lucy the ability to leap up from her hiding place-fighting against her fear-run passed the startled dwarfs who hadn't known she was there in the first place and rip the rings out of the holders.

Everyone gasped and for a split second before any action could be taken, they all stared at Lucy in complete and utter amazement.


	15. Life

The shock of Lucy's sudden appearance wore off quickly enough and they all stopped gaping at her. Several of the dwarfs' expressions looked furious and fierce

Lucy didn't pay much mind to their angry facial expressions right away because the two yellow rings felt iron hot in the palms of her hands (the two green ones felt cool, like a swimming hole in the late autumn) and she could distantly feel a sort of pull on the back of her dress that she knew was not coming from a dwarf behind her; it was as if the rings were pulling her into another world while they rested in her hand. The tug wasn't as strong as it would have been if she'd been wearing them on her fingers and not nearly so intense as it would have been had she been inside the box while the rings powered it, but it was enough to make her uncomfortable. Thinking quickly, she dropped them into a small pocket on her leather belt.

Ginarrbrik grunted and charged at her, ready to knock her down and steal the rings back. In a flash-thinking only of the fact that if the dwarfs got the rings from her, they'd start up the box again and knowing that Edmund and Peter would never survive another other worldly pull in their weakened states-Lucy did the only thing she could do at the moment, she pulled out her dagger and plunged it into Ginarrbrik's stomach. The look on his face, flushed and open-mouthed, made her feel sick and dizzy as she suffered the loss of a great deal of her innocence, watching the bleeding dwarf stagger backwards.

Evidently, he didn't plan on dying as easily as his cousin had; continuing to grab at the air close to the skirt of Lucy's dress, trying to pull her down with him.

One of the dwarfs (whoever it was-by name-has always been a mystery) must have suddenly changed his mind about being part of the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' and secretly taken Peter's side, because someone had undone the husky dog's chain and muzzle, though even she herself hadn't gotten a good enough look at the dwarf to remember him later. And of course, it couldn't have been any of the fays because they were still all tied up. So the husky dog leaped forward-biting the legs of any dwarfs who tried to get in her way and limping slightly because she still wore a heavy collar-thrusting herself in-between Lucy and Ginarrbrik. Her teeth snapped at his hand the next time it came within two inches of Lucy and he winced in pain.

"You fools!" He gasped, putting one hand to his stomach wound. "Don't just stand there while I die, do something! Attack them, attack!"

Regaining a little of his strength, Peter kicked at the side paneling of the box again, this time it cracked. He pushed his hands along the crack until they were covered in cuts and bruises; pulling himself upwards towards the crack and the opening, forcing them together.

Once he was out, he nearly fell to the ground-still dizzy from what they had just done to him and his brother (Edmund was still limp and unconscious on his side of the box) but he managed to ignore the pain and the spinning world around him, grabbing onto Lucy's waist with one arm and firmly locking his fingers around the husky dog's collar.

"Not one step closer!" Peter bellowed, wiggling his free hand as close to Lucy's belt pocket as he dared. "If you come even an inch towards us, I'll grab onto the rings and take us-all three of us-right out of the world and you'll never have the power you've struggled for all these years."

The dwarfs hesitated, seeing his point. They glanced back and forth at once another each seeming to silently ask, "So what do we do _now_?"

Panting on the ground, struggling to cling to life so that he could get up again and finish what he and Nikabrik had begun together, Ginarrbrik, took a raspy gasp-very raw-sounding even for him-and spluttered out, "Don't be taken...in...he's bluffing...his...so-called majesty...wouldn't...survive such a journey...in his weakened...state...he's..." the dwarf's voice trailed off and for a moment everyone wondered if he had died in the middle of his little speech before he started speaking again. "Don't...be...fooled...and someone...come and...help...me..."

This was too much for poor Lucy to bear; to see her sister-who she of course had recognized by this point-transformed into a dog, to catch stolen glimpses of a motionless Edmund out of the corners of her eyes, to lose all sense of reason and comfort-knowing that she had just stabbed someone-that she might be a murderer if he didn't live, to feel how weak Peter really was at the moment as he tried to hold himself up by her waist, it was all more than she could endure in silence. Her lower lip shook and quivered and tears fell like rain, breaking like tiny shards of glass when they hit the ground.

Peter leaned down so that his lips were in line with her ear. "Shh...it's alright, Lucy, we're going to be fine." he wasn't actually sure if that was true-there was still a good chance that they might be attacked and defeated; and though he didn't want to admit it, it was possible that Edmund might be...that he might not wake up again...no, he would be fine...he had to be...they all had to be. He wasn't telling a falsehood; he would find a way to get them all out of this if it was the last thing he did.

Peter's body was so spent that when he tried to lift himself back up after comforting Lucy, his knees refused to do their job. It was like being crippled, he couldn't move them very well.

Seeing this weakness, the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' cheered and started to come closer to Lucy so as to pin her down and grab the rings; certain that Peter would not be able to stop them.

It took all he had, but Peter tightened his grip around Lucy's waist and pulled himself up, pretending that he was doing this of his own strength and was not using her middle as a sort of ladder. The stern look he shot in their direction-fighting back a grimace of pain-convinced them to stay back.

What if he _could_ survive a journey into another world? He was weak, but what if he found someone in that other world that could nurse him back to health? Of course he would never fully regain his former strength-not with his brother in Narnia, passed out cold-but he might be able to get by. Peter just _might_ escape from them with the rings if they didn't stay back and do as he said. Would he really leave his courtiers and his brother behind in a place like this, though? He wasn't so heartless; surely this was all for show, just like Ginarrbrik was telling them. But what if it wasn't? After all, the courtiers would have wanted him to get the rings as far away from the dwarfs as possible, no matter what. This would have been the lesser evil, of course he was telling the truth. Ginarrbrik was dying-he had lost his senses-he was _mad_! The dwarfs would not let themselves been bossed about by a mad lunatic on his death-bed, they decided. Best to just give the high king whatever he asked for and then see what happened after that.

"What do you want from us, high king?" a dwarf in the front of the group said rather begrudgingly.

"No!" shrieked Ginarrbrik from the ground, pulling himself up and staggering towards Lucy. "Never...give...in...we dwarfs...will...the dwarfs are for...the d-" but he never finished that sentence because the husky dog shot out her paw to protect her sister, knocking him over to the side of the box where he hit his head. Now with two wounds, his death came even quicker. He seemed to be trying to say something else, but it couldn't come out.

The first thing Peter did was glance over at Susan to see if she had turned back into a human maiden again now that Ginarrbrik was dead, disappointed to find that she hadn't. Sighing deeply to himself, Peter went on with his threat to use the rings and leave the world until the dwarfs agreed to do everything he asked for. Under his orders they untied the fays-including Jill and Eustace. When it became apparent that there was no other way around it now that both of their leaders were dead, they gave themselves up for prisoners to the very fays they had been fighting against all this time. Trumpkin soon had a pile of surrendered dwarf-swords by his right side taller than he was.

Once everything had been sorted out; the dwarfs all in the same chains and cords they had used on the fays, Peter let go of Lucy and the husky dog and went back to the box to help his brother. Eustace's idea was to break the glass and pull him out but the others were worried of him getting injured from all the shards in their attempts to save him and came up with a more suitable plan of unbinding one of the dwarfs who knew how to operate and open the box-just one so that he would definitely be out numbered-and having him get Edmund out.

Jill spread out a scarlet velvet blanket the now-free fays had raided from one of the dwarfs' bed chambers on the ground so the high king's brother could be laid out comfortably.

Poor Edmund was so still and so white that he very nearly bore the look of a corpse. They felt for a pulse and-thankfully-there was one but it was distant and faint, a mere trickle of a hint of a breath of life flowing through him.

"Come on, Ed, please wake up." said Peter in a choked-up voice, lightly slapping his brother's cheeks hoping the harmless blows would revive him somehow. His tears fell on Edmund's face but he still didn't stir; showing no signs of returning to himself.

"Oh!" whimpered the husky dog, nudging his arm with her front paws. When it did nothing for him, she did a sort of half-pounce with them on his chest in an attempt to make him put more effort into breathing so that he wouldn't fade away completely.

Slowly, but surely, all life was going out of him. There was even a slight layer of yellow-green dust on the back of one of his hands as if he was already becoming a dead body in another world; turning to coloured ash right there in front of them.

As she looked down at him and shakily reached for his hand-such a cold, inert hand-Lucy remembered the first time she had ever seen him, protecting her and her sister from falling into the gorge. In her mind's eye the fairy's white tunic became like that of an angel watching over them; their angel, _her_ angel. It occurred to her suddenly how lost she would be without him. Weeping steadily, Lucy got down onto her knees, crawled on the blanket, and laid herself out beside him, resting her head on his barely-moving chest.

Deeply moved, Jill put her hand to her mouth turned away, looking to Eustace-who was pretty emotional himself at the moment-for comfort. He put one arm around her and with the other, took off his helmet, as was customary for a courtier to do when a great lord or king passed away.

"There must be something..." Peter murmured faintly, half to everyone else in the room and half to himself. "He can't..."

Susan hadn't seen very many deaths in her fairly quiet and peaceful up-bringing, but she still knew-or thought she knew, which is not always the same thing-what a dead person looked like.

"It's too late." wept the husky dog. "He's gone."

Looking down at the body, everyone could believe that, for they could see that whatever else he was, there was no way he could be taken for someone who was _alive_.

Lucy knew better though, she could still feel the little bit of warmth in him and the barely-existent pulse flowing in the body she was resting against. Ever so gently, she pulled herself up just a very little bit and kissed him on the cheek, not in farewell-as everyone who saw her do it assumed-but in encouragement, one last silent little plea for him to come back to them. A second later, though he still felt very cold, she noticed that his face had turned a slightly pinkish colour; apparently, he was blushing.

Noticing the change, everybody held their breath for a moment to see what would happen; Lucy pressed herself closer to him, clinging tightly as if she was afraid letting go would make him slip away for good. His dark eyelashes fluttered slightly and his eyes opened a crack. Lucy felt his arm wrap itself all the way around her while Peter, Eustace, and Jill rushed forward to help them up.

"Ed!" Peter hugged him from the side opposite to where Lucy was. "You're not dead!"

"I'm not?" Edmund's voice was as faint as the last trickle of water in a dried up river; he sounded rather confused. "That's good, I guess."

"Oh, Edmund!" Lucy let go of him only to throw her arms around his neck a half-second later.

"What's wrong, Lu?" He tried to sit up and nudge her away just slightly so that they would be eye-to-eye but then he realized how weak he was. A little taken back, he turned to Peter. "Pete, what's the matter with my legs? They won't move."

"You're just a little weak." Peter told him with a reassuring smile. "We both are...but I think we'll be alright."

The journey back up into the upper world took longer than they would have liked but there was no way to speed it up; Peter had to stop and rest every few paces or so and Edmund couldn't walk and had to be supported by Eustace on one side of him and Lucy on the other. Because walking on her four paws made her shorter and less likely to bump her head than the others, the journey was relatively easy for the husky dog, but it was also filled with the worry that she might be trapped in that form for ever; she didn't much like that thought. She wondered how on earth Peter had managed to put up with being a bear for so long-now that she knew what it was like to be transformed.

When they finally reached an opening leading to the glorious sun-lit world above them, Edmund started to look less pale as if the mere sliver of sunlight reaching him from a distance was already starting to do him some good. They lifted him up out of the cave first so that everyone else who still had use of their legs could have a chance to climb out without worrying about him lagging behind. Peter refused to go out until every last courtier of his-and Lucy-were safely above ground; the husky dog refused to leave him and waited at his side.

"You never left me," was her soft protest when he started to get worked up about her not going up with the others. "why should I leave you?"

Finally, using every bit of strength he could manage to muster, Peter stumbled up and out into the light-and instantly began to feel a little better; more like himself again somehow. He stretched out his hand at the opening and the husky dog placed her paw in it. As he lifted her up, the paw turned from ashy-gray to lily-white and became a lady's hand with fingers tightly wrapped around his own. Looking at the figure now standing in front of him, Peter saw that Susan had become herself again, too.

Lucy smiled happily and called out, "Susan!" but she didn't run over to her because she was busy helping Eustace lower Edmund onto a boulder for him to sit on.

Throwing his arms around her, Peter embraced Susan tightly and kissed both her cheeks. "Thanks be to the Lion!"

Susan blinked and started to pull back before changing her mind and putting her arms around his neck, pressing her lips against his.

Someone-possibly Eustace though he always said afterwards that it wasn't him-blurted out, "Aww!"

Very nearly forgetting that there was anyone else nearby besides themselves, Peter and Susan continued to kiss for a little while longer until they were startled and called back into reality by the sound of an applause.

"It's about time!" Edmund muttered to himself, remembering how long his brother had pined after the beautiful elder Pevensie sister.

Without thinking, he reached out and squeezed Lucy's hand which was resting on the boulder a few inches away from his. Smiling, Lucy glanced at Edmund and squeezed back.


	16. Campfire

In honour of the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' defeat (and because Peter was exhausted and Edmund still couldn't move his legs or even stand up on them for more than a half-minute, though no one pointed this out not wanting to be negative), the fays proposed a marvelous campfire feast right outside the caves, which everyone readily agreed to.

Glorious-though rather small in size-pavilions were set up by the fays for reclining. Someone brought out a violin, and of course Edmund mentioned that Peter played and several faces turned to their high king rather eagerly.

"Oh no, I'm not that good, really." Peter stammered, turning a little red in the face. "I'm terribly out of practice...not to mention so tired that I probably wouldn't remember how even if-"

He stopped speaking when he felt a gentle hand on one of his shoulders; turning around slightly to look at Susan who was batting her eyes at him pleadingly.

"No." said Peter, half-laughing, his tone not really at all as firm as he had at first meant it to be.

"Please?" her hand lightly stroked the side of his arm.

He shook his head. "I can't..."

"For me?" Susan tried, sort of half-leaning on him while she spoke.

That did it. "Well, alright." smiling back at his dear love, the one he had waited so long for a chance with, who he had gone into the depths of the dwarf's underworld to rescue, he knew there wasn't very much in their world-or in any other as likely as not-that he could refuse her or her sister.

Edmund shrugged apologetically but he didn't actually look all that sorry-he looked mostly as if he was simply trying to hold back a light snicker. Lucy, who was sitting with him, having decided to give her sister and Peter some space so they could snuggle up together and act as lovey-dovey as they wanted (after all they'd been through, she figured they deserved it), noticed the repressed snicker and was nearly over-come with a sudden desire to make him laugh for real. He didn't laugh, but just watching her while she shifted her gaze at him did make his smile widen; he couldn't help but think how pretty she looked sitting next to him, the orange glow of the fire flickering on her sweet, round, dimpled face.

The violin was brought to Peter and though he had had his reservations about playing at first (mostly because he felt it would be a tad awkward to attempt to start up his old skill again with his love and his courtiers all staring at him), the second the bow touched his hands, his fingers remembered their old work and started up again just as naturally and easily as a talented dancer twirls across a room or a skilled fencer disarms his opponent. The music that followed his gliding movements was soft, but not at all sad; rather, it was a like a love story that is so good and pure that one might feel it simply must have a tragic ending leaving the listener in tears in order to remain as beautiful as it is in the middle, but then, surprisingly, ends well and happily and somehow is just as memorable.

There were no ears within hearing distance that were not tingling delightfully. As for Susan, she was so moved that if she hadn't already fallen in love with him, she would have completely lost her heart by the first note. She was thankful for the bright fire's glow, for it-to an extent-hid her blush as his eyes-whenever they opened during his performance-kept locking with hers. When he finished, everyone clapped and if there were any living trees with dryads nearby that place, there is no doubt that they swayed on his final chord.

Lucy grinned and said, quite truthfully, that she had never heard anything nicer in all her life with the exception of Aslan's own rich, beautifully golden voice.

"That was lovely." Susan told him, looking so intently at him that for a moment he lost his nerve and looked away muttering that it really wasn't _that_ good; causing a great deal of repressed laughter and grins among the older fays who knew about young romance.

The grandest of the pavilions had been set aside for the high king, his brother, and the Pevensie sisters with a cloth hung in the middle so that the opposite sexes would have their privacy. The luxury was somewhat wasted on them seeing as neither girl had any night clothing to actually change into and were simply wearing the same dresses that the fays had provided for them before the campfire had been lit and that the boys were just too tired to bother changing. Though they had already had a fine meal of all the good things the fays could provide and roast, there was a little tea-tray left for them piled with little tarts and cakes and cream puffs.

After a good tuck-in of pastries and long conversations whispered back and forth from the two brothers to the two sisters on the other side of the cloth, Lucy dropped off on the soft cushions into a deep slumber with no dreams. Turning around to laugh about this with his brother, Peter realized that Edmund was already asleep, too, completely worn out. Both elder siblings tucked the younger ones in and tenderly bid them goodnight (or rather, Susan gently and carefully folded the covers around Lucy and planted a kiss on her forehead and Peter causally dropped an extra wool blanket over Edmund's head and muttered, "Night, Ed.", though both gestures were meant with the most endearing of affections).

Both Susan and Peter did feel rather tired themselves but quickly found that no matter how long they rested and stared up at the cloth canopies above them, they simply couldn't fall asleep, and in the end they gave up trying altogether. Sliding the middle cloth aside, Susan crept over onto the fay boys' part of the pavilion where Peter was sitting up looking blankly at nothing, knowing that laying down was quite useless at this point.

"Can't you sleep either?" he said as she came closer and sat herself down beside him.

She shook her head no and gave him a sort of half-smile. After a moment of complete silence, she finally said, "Peter?"

"Yes?"

"I'm really sorry if I ever teased you too badly back when you were a bear." she turned away slightly as if trying to hide a guilty expression. "I do hope I wasn't too horrid."

"Hey, didn't I once tell you that my feelings could take much more trouble than _that_?" his eyes flickered playfully as she looked back at him.

Turning bright scarlet, Susan finally got a hold of herself and flat-out said what she had been wanting to tell him for a while now. "I just don't want you to think that the winter you spent with me and my mother and my sister didn't mean anything because...because..." she knew she must sound so horribly ridiculous to the high king who was listening so politely to her rambling, but she forced herself to press on and not let her voice trail off completely. "...because it was the best winter of my life."

Hearing this, Peter brightened up completely; from her kiss earlier and the way she had been acting around him at the campfire he'd gathered she had some feelings for him but what she was saying now spoke so much louder. He knew her, he knew this wasn't just some apology she was trying to come up with-if it were, there had been a million other ways she could-and would-have phrased it, this was her way of saying she loved him.

Reaching over and stroking her cheek, he whispered, "I love you."

"I love you, too." the words flowed out so easily that it almost frightened her, more like a breath of air than actual speech.

Leaning in to kiss her lips, he answered, half-jokingly but with all sincerity and adoration at the same time, "I know."

Susan let out a sigh as his arms slipped around her waist, pulling her closer to him-suddenly really not caring about how tired she was and how she would get no rest that night, this was much better than sleep.

"I need to ask you something, Su." Peter murmured when they pulled away from each other for a moment.

"What is it?" asked Susan, her eyes widening; she was afraid he was going to say something about leaving her because he was a fay king and she was just some human maiden-of course the very notion was absurd (he had just told her he loved her barely four minutes ago!) but it's amazing how little common sense the most practical people actually use when it comes to love.

"Now that I'm going to be high king over Narnia, since the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' are defeated, I'm going to have to go and live in Cair Paravel. It is my home, Susan, and-"

"I understand," Susan blurted out, not even giving him a chance to finish his thought. "you'll need to move on and I-"

"Move on?" his brow crinkled and he blinked at her in confusion. "What _are_ you talking about?"

"Aren't you going to leave me?" she looked so piteous that Peter wasn't sure if he wanted to hug her or laugh at her.

"Alright, exactly how much wine did you have at the campfire?"

"But isn't that what you meant when you said you were going to have to go back to Cair Paravel?"

At this, he couldn't help it, he had to laugh, throw his shoulders back and laugh so loud that it's a wonder it didn't wake anyone up. "Susan!"

"What?" Susan pouted, she strongly disliked laughter at her expense.

"I was asking you to come with me!" Peter grabbed onto her hands and held them tightly in his own-after all he'd gone through longing to be with her, she'd had better not truly believe he would _ever_ try to leave her. "I want you to marry me and be my wife, my queen, Narnia's queen."

"Me, a queen?" Susan's nose wrinkled. "Exactly how much wine did _you_ drink back at the campfire?"

"None," Peter joked, letting out a half-chuckle. "I gave my share to Edmund, that's why he's out cold."

Susan shook her head and giggled faintly. "Peter!"

"But seriously, Susan," a somber expression came up into her eyes, she knew he wasn't playing around anymore. "I do think you would make a wonderful queen." lifting one of the hands he still held, he brought it up to his lips and kissed it. "We could be happy, you know, ruling over Narnia side by side."

"My mother and my sister-" said Susan, rather stupidly, for she ought to have known that Peter meant for them to come and live in Cair Paravel, too.

"They'd live with us...you'd like it there, Susan, all of you would-I'm quite certain."

"Yes," she agreed finally, letting him hold her again now. "I'll marry you."

He pressed his lips against hers; never had there been a happier king in all of Narnia's history before that exact moment. Their lips opened a little and his tongue slipped into her mouth, only to hastily dart out one half-second later when an unnaturally loud snore from Edmund reminded them that they weren't actually alone and they both started feeling a little uncomfortable.

"Well, good night, then." Peter couldn't stop smiling at her in spite of himself.

"Good night." moving silently away, back towards her side of the parting cloth, Susan smiled back.

The next morning, everyone gathered up jugs of water from the sides of the pavilions and had a good drink and splashed what was left over on their puffy, just-woken-up faces. Going back to refill her jug, Lucy came across Edmund who was standing a little ways away leaning on a wooden cane Trumpkin and a few of the fays had made for him; his legs were a little better today, but they still didn't work properly, especially the right one.

"Hullo, Ed."

"Hullo, Lu."

"Feeling any better?" she motioned downwards at his legs with her water jug.

Edmund shrugged his shoulders. "A little."

"That's good." Lucy wondered why she felt so shy and quiet all of a sudden.

"So, I hear my brother and your sister are betrothed now."

Lucy giggled mildly. "Yes, Susan's very happy."

"Peter hasn't shut up about it yet." Edmund added, laughing along with her.

"I'm glad they're going to be together." Lucy confided in him. "I think they would have been miserable without each other."

Edmund nodded in agreement. "Peter probably would have never married anyone if she had turned him down."

"Susan would have." Lucy knew it wasn't as tragically romantic as Peter's hypothetical reaction, but it was the truth. "But she wouldn't have been happy, which is worse, I think."

"Well, I suppose this means you'll be coming to Cair Paravel now, too?" Edmund shifted the cane slightly to the left so as to bear a little less weight on his right leg.

Lucy nodded. "Yes, it's all being arranged."

He looked utterly delighted. "How wonderful! There's so much I can show you there, it was my home for a good while before the whole mess with Tash's mirror and the rings and the rebelling dwarfs got started."

"Susan says we'll both have to take etiquette lessons." Lucy's expression looked like she'd just sucked a lemon. "So that we can act like proper members of the court."

Edmund frowned and waved that off. "Oh, forget that, we'll be too busy sliding down the banister in the great hall and running a muck all over the castle grounds to bother-once my legs are better, of course."

"Sounds good to me." Lucy had to admit that when he put it that way, royal life didn't seem as dull or stuffy as she had imagined it might be.


	17. Coronation

The day was bright and clear; the sky was at its very lightest shade of blue and the few clouds that marred it were as white and fluffy as a new-born seal, giving no hint of rainfall anywhere in the near future.

Standing in the middle of her two beautiful rose trees, holding a small pair of silver gardening sheers in her hands, Widow Pevensie had to gulp back a few sobs of worry and dismay. She had the most horrible feeling that some dreadful fate had befallen her poor daughters; they had not returned from the village. While she knew-and trusted-that most of the people and beasts around the area would do her dear children no harm, and while she certainly gave the benefit of the doubt to many a traveler, she was not so sure that every single person who went in and out of the village was good of heart. Better it would have been, she had thought rather sadly to herself, if her darling Susan White and her sweet little Rose Lucy had lost themselves in the forest together, where no beast with even half a heart would treat them badly. To think that something in the village had gotten them, well, it was almost more than a mother's heart could bear.

Looking up at the golden sun with tears filling each and very corner in the brims of her eyes, nearly blinded by both, the widow mourned inwardly and silently and then turned to look at the two trees again; they were so very like her daughters. This year, they were over-loaded with more blooms of the most snowy-white and blood-red than they'd ever had before, more beautiful in this one season coming to an end than in all of the years before it.

"Oh," whispered Widow Pevensie, lightly pressing her lips to the bloom of the closest red rose, perhaps fancying deep down inside that she was kissing her younger daughter on the forehead. "why must all joys in life exist only in seasons and then break a mother's heart when they end?"

Then, a more somber expression came up onto her face and she clipped off one red rose bloom and one white, holding them both in the cupped palms of her hands. Such beauty, such contrast, such love, such bitter-sweetness, such joy, and such pain, all neatly packaged into two soft flower-heads.

Almost in complete despair, a broken woman who would always leave a lantern lit for her lost children, a hurt soul, she looked up and saw the most wonderful vision: four persons in royal garments coming towards her; two boys-more like young men-and two girls-her own daughters.

The first to reach the widow was the elder of the two young men. He was golden headed with very familiar eyes-which she realized with some very intense surprise were those of the black bear who had spend the past winter with them, or else matching blue spheres as like them as two peas from the same pod. Walking by his side, holding his hand, was her own dear eldest daughter, Susan White; she wore a smile so lovely and so certain that her mother knew what it meant right away.

Just behind them, came another boy; dark-haired and limping slightly, clinging both to a wooden cane and to the arm of a younger girl-Rose Lucy-who also looked very pleased. Though _her_ smile didn't yet mean the same as the one on her sister's face, the wise widow knew at once that it wouldn't be very much time until it did.

What was all the more wonderful, was that the vision did not fade and it came to her mind that it was not a 'vision' after all-that it was quite real. Dropping the blooms onto the ground, she ran to them with open arms, weeping heavily, over-come with joy.

"Mother!" cried Susan, letting go of Peter's hand and running into Widow Pevensie's arms.

Lucy did not run off to her mother right away only because she needed to help Edmund put the full amount of his weight back onto the cane so that he wouldn't fall when she let go. When that was taken care of, Lucy, feeling suddenly like a small lost child that has just been found by her parent, flung herself into her mother's tight embrace. It was not very many moments until both Peter and Edmund were welcomed into the hug, too. Though they were not hers, the widow felt almost exactly as if they were; and if they truly weren't, it didn't matter, for they would be soon. In Narnia there have been precious few reunions that did not involve Aslan, showing this level of happiness.

"Thanks be to the Lion," Widow Pevensie sighed, kissing her elder daughter's cheek and stroking the area under the chin of the younger one. "you're safe."

"Mother, you remember Peter, don't you?" Susan said, not without a hint of humour in her voice as the widow loosened her grip on the high king.

So it _was_ the bear! The widow held back a laugh, not wanting her future son-in-law to think the mother of the woman he had chosen for his wife was at all the sort of person to laugh at what clearly had been a very upsetting enchantment for the poor boy. So she spoke as if she did not see any difference in him since the last time they had met (she was a very remarkable woman, after all). "Yes, hello Peter, it's good to see you again."

"Peter is the high king of Narnia." Lucy blurted out.

The widow could have been knocked over with a feather. She had known they were prominent young men just from the way they were dressed, perhaps noble lords, but the elder one being a king, a high king? It was rather shocking. "But how is that possible? King Frank and Queen Helen are our monarchs, chosen by Aslan himself, none should speak of over-throwing them. It is a thing not right for us to say."

And so, they had to tell her the whole story; it took a while because she-though a very patient and understanding person-had a great deal of questions which she interrupted with whenever she could do so without seeming rude, but in the end, she got the gist of it and embraced the royal boys again; quite forgetting in her sorrow over all they had been through that perhaps physically comforting kings, no matter how young they were, was not the place of a peasant. Of course, she had already given her full-hearted consent to the marriage between High King Peter and her first-born daughter, but she felt-now that she knew him for who he really was-that she must give it again, and so she did.

Edmund, who in looking in on the girls as often as he had, trying to watch over them and pay a penance for his mistake against Narnia so long ago, had not been able to avoid growing attached to Widow Pevensie, too, (not having had a real mother in so long), began speaking to her now as if she was his own parent.

"You will come to Cair Paravel with us, Mother?" he inquired gently, leaning rather heavily on his wooden cane, the walk down this way having worn him out a bit.

"Do come," Peter implored her, smiling so brightly that the widow wondered how any woman could refuse an offer accompanied by it. "there is room enough for everyone."

"I will gladly come." Widow Pevensie happily agreed. "But may I bring my rose trees with me? I can hardly imagine a morning waking up without knowing they are right outside waiting for me to care for them-seeing as my own two dear Roses have grown up and bloomed-" here she paused and looked lovingly upon Susan and Lucy. "what else is left for me to take care of in this world?"

"The moles can dig up the trees and take them to Cair Paravel, right Pete?" Edmund looked over at his brother.

"Of course!" he promised, nodding at the woman who would soon be his mother-in-law. "It shall all be arranged as soon as possible."

Satisfied, the widow nodded back and curtsied to the high king. "It is good, your majesty."

"Mother," said Peter-feeling that he, too, ought to start calling her that-helping the woman up back to her feet so that they were eye-to-eye. "we are to be family, you do not need to bow to me. All of Narnia will show _you_ the respect, Lady Pevensie."

"I can see why my daughter excepted your suit above the others." the widow told him.

"Others?" Peter teasingly raised an eyebrow at Susan who blushed furiously.

"Mother!"

Edmund only made more trouble. "Like that Telmarine merchant you were flirting with at the market." Susan hadn't known it, but the younger brother of the man who loved her had noticed this in spite of everything else that had been going on that day.

"Telmarine merchant, eh?" Peter grinned at her.

Susan had a hard time looking him in the eyes for a moment. "Oh, it meant nothing...I...I didn't realize I loved you then...and it really wasn't exactly _flirting_..."

Lucy had to fight back a laugh, only to let out a half-snort which was over-looked because Edmund's full-snort was louder for the second it lasted before Susan's angry glare silenced it.

Peter sighed and slipped his arm around Susan shoulders. "Ready to go home?"

Though Susan had not yet seen Cair Paravel with her own eyes, she knew just from the fact that it was Peter's home, that it was her home, too. She knew there would be happiness and joy there; now that they had come and gotten her mother, what need did they have to hold off the journey eastward any longer?

It took less time than the two girls and their mother had expected it would to reach the castle because fay-coaches (engraved with royal signets all in various kinds of gold) travel faster than the human-made ones do and before they knew it, Edmund's unicorn and a white horse belonging to Jill-who had been the ones pulling the coach-had stopped outside of Narnia's capitol.

As soon as King Frank and Queen Helen laid eyes on them, they knew the fay brothers for who they were (they hadn't known _when_ they would rise again and take their place as kings, but they knew it would happen eventually). Rather than being bitter, they were happy and they kissed the hands of the high king and his brother in joyful welcome.

For their goodness and instant submission, Peter immediately rewarded them with a permanent place in the court and decreed that no one, old or young, human, centaur, dwarf, beast, dryad, or fay should speak against them. Frank, though he was coming along in years, was made a knight: Sir Frank of the hourglass. His wife, they called: Lady Helen of the hands of time.

After that, Aslan the great Lion arrived padding over the eastern sea and into the castle's throne room and Narnia prepared itself for a grand coronation. The good dwarfs; the ones who had not joined the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' and betrayed Peter-including Trumpkin-as well as those who had repented after being captured (there were-surprisingly-quite a few of these) made the most perfectly elegant crowns for Peter the high king and his brother, who was to be a king under him just as the centaur had predicted so long ago. There were also beautiful wreaths of gold and silver made for Susan and Lucy (who, although not as of yet betrothed to the younger king, was still to be a high lady of the court).

Cries of, "Long live the kings, the queen, and the lady!" echoed throughout all of Narnia and everyone celebrated. There was a banquet so wonderful that it made the delicious campfire feast seem like naught but a light snack; wine flowed reasonably freely and there was even dancing. Everyone joined in except for Edmund, who's legs were still too weak, and Lucy, who-though the dancing seemed like such fun-decided to sit by him on the balcony instead so he wouldn't feel left out.

"What do you think of the castle, Cair Paravel, so far, Lucy-Lu?" He asked as the sun was setting over the sand making the edges near the sea look like a bright pink line in sharp contrast to the golden light reflecting off of the rest of it.

"It's lovely." Lucy told him truthfully, taking it all in. "I'd bet I could see nearly all of Narnia from here."

Smiling, Edmund put his hand over hers. "I'd bet you could, too." Tightening his grip just a very little bit, he added, "Try it."

Somehow he didn't have to explain what he meant, she just knew all of a sudden that her eyes were different with his fay hand over her human one. She realized that she could make her eyes travel as far as she wanted to; that she could see-just as they had been talking about-all of Narnia. Archenland was a little fuzzy and it made her head hurt a little to focus that far for too long (Calormen was a complete blur), but every bit of Narnia itself was perfectly clear no matter which way she looked.

She could see all sorts of things. Like a wedding down in the village; Caspian and Ramandu's daughter were getting married and the townspeople were releasing doves and throwing flower-petals over them as Ramandu gave the bride away. She also saw their old cottage standing empty now-bare even of the two rose trees, which, if she looked the other way, she could see being planted outside by the window of her mother's new bedchamber in the castle. There was the forest-where this had all started-and she focused for a while on the gorge, just remembering Edmund watching over her and Susan what felt like such a long, long time ago.

Her eyes didn't have to travel all that way to see happiness; she didn't need any fay gifts from Edmund to see love, she just had to look behind her-where Peter and Susan sat on their thrones, holding their scepters and beaming at one another-or beside her at the person she thought she herself might be falling for. Still, when she looked far off, she saw one thing that troubled her. The box still remained-a little broken but still mostly in tack-down in the dwarf's former underworld. She didn't like that one bit. It occurred to her that there was still one thing that had to be done before Narnia could truly be safe.

Edmund, knowing what she was thinking, nodded and said, "We'll both go and take care of it, you and me."

"When?" Lucy asked him.

"Soon enough." he promised. "When the time's right."

Lucy stopped exploring the kingdom with her eyes and looked right at him again. "Okay."

"Right now, though, I just want to enjoy this." said Edmund.

Lucy leaned to the side and rested her head on his shoulder; she wanted to enjoy it, too.


	18. Ending

It was darker even than Lucy had remembered; perhaps this was because the dwarfs had long since left it as little more than an abandoned mine and there were no longer any of their little oil lamps-not even a very dim one-lit and waiting for them. The only visible light came from the lantern she herself had brought with her, down into these depths, from Cair Paravel. Just behind her was Edmund; his legs had mostly healed and strengthened by then but he still had a rather overt limp when he walked.

"I think we're nearly there now, Lu." he told her, looking-from what she could make out in the comparatively dim lantern's light-very solemn.

The underground air, somewhere between too hot and too cold, was beginning to smell very much like sulfur, burning the little hairs in Lucy's nostrils. Avoiding taking too deep of a breath and inhaling the odor, she merely nodded in an almost goggling sort of way and pressed on. Though he didn't speak up to complain, they hadn't gotten too far along before she could hear Edmund's faint grunting to keep close by her side, his leg-probably the right one-was acting up again. So they had a moment's rest; though their lack of speaking or doing anything of importance almost made it seem non-existent and what felt like barely a second later, they were on the move again.

"Maybe we've waited too long." Lucy said suddenly, looking a little discomforted, thinking of the box waiting all this time to be destroyed. What if someone had gone and taken it? It had been two years after all. Surely if an enemy ever found out about it-and what it could do to their kings-they wouldn't let it alone for ever.

"I don't think so." said Edmund, his voice sounding more out-of-breath than worried. "Peter gave those former 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' a good enough threatening to keep their mouths shut and no one else but the truest courtiers ever knew of it. You have to remember that."

"I suppose we _couldn't_ have come any earlier." Lucy sighed, knowing well that Edmund would have never let her come down alone; Peter was too busy with his wife and running the kingdom and all that good stuff, it would have been too traumatic for poor Susan to come back underground to this place, and of course Edmund's legs hadn't been well enough to subject him to such a taxing journey until now. The royal physician-a stately looking faun with a cowlick and a short stumpy beard-had assured them that Edmund's legs would eventually recover completely (meaning the limp wouldn't last for ever either), but also that it would take more time than they probably would prefer because the damage done to them hadn't been anywhere near minimal.

"Come," Edmund gripped the side of her arm lightly, limpingly leading her over to the arch which appeared to have rusted quite a bit since they'd last been there.

A dripping sound from above and the feeling of wet moss on their hands when they leaned against it revealed that moisture had found this place and soon, when it was all forgotten, this place would become nothing but a tangle of ivy vines and mold under the crust of the earth. Still, they decided, the box ought to be destroyed all the same-just in case.

Lucy held up her lantern just a little higher and let her eyes adjust mournfully to the sight of the horrid thing that had nearly killed the two fay brothers whom she loved so dearly; one of them was her brother-in-law now and the other, the younger, dark-haired one currently inflicted with a limp, the fairy who had once watched over good children, was her betrothed. Suddenly the box seemed like little more than a bad dream coming to an end at last. It couldn't hurt them anymore.

"Well, this is it." Edmund took his sword out of its scabbard and slammed the flat of it against the tinted glass. Nothing happened, only a sharp ping. Rolling his eyes, he put his sword back into its place. "Rather anticlimactic, wouldn't you say?"

Lucy suppressed a smile while Edmund stroked his chin and seemed to be doing some deep thinking. A moment later, he looked back at her with widened eyes. "Lucy, stand back."

"Why?"

"Trust me, take at least four paces back...this isn't going to be pretty." Reaching into a leather pouch he happened to have on his person, he pulled out the four yellow and green rings which had been bound up in one of Lucy's handkerchiefs, placing them into the holders-taking great care not to touch them with his bare skin if it could be avoided.

"What are you doing?" Lucy grabbed onto his elbow.

He kissed her cheek. "Trust me on this, alright?"

She closed her eyes tightly, relaxing in calm blackness for a second, and then opened them again. "Alright."

"I hope this works." whispered Edmund, under his breath so that Lucy couldn't hear him.

In one swift motion that would have been as flawless as a glittering burst of lightning in the sky had he not have had to lumber slightly to get an inch closer to the box, Edmund placed the rings in the holders and then jumped back, spinning quickly so that his arms were around Lucy's waist.

The box started to flash-green and yellow-more and more quickly. It had nothing inside of it to use any of its power on so it just got brighter as if searching every bit of its edges to find a victim. When it didn't, some sparks started shooting out from the side paneling Peter had broken-firing off like emerald and gold fireworks.

Realizing how intense the result of this was going to be, Edmund pulled Lucy down onto the ground and held her there under the weight of his body so that she wouldn't be hurt when the box out-right exploded pretty much directly in front of them. To Lucy, who could see nothing but the side of Edmund's armpit where it stuck out from where part of his tunic had burst a seam, it appeared-and felt-like nothing more than a rapid earthquake quivering all around them. Edmund saw part of the actual explosion, but only up until the thing cracked and shattered like a mirror while the lights continued flashing-he'd had to close his eyes tightly when the glass was sprayed across the floor from the wreckage. Part of the arch gave way and there was the squeak of it half-falling; they would have to be careful not to collide with it when they left.

When he was certain it was over, Edmund got up and helped a somewhat-startled Lucy to her feet, holding her quite close to him so that she would not step the wrong way and fall onto the glass. Amazingly, her lantern hadn't broken during the box's breaking point, so they were able to grab it again and use it to see their way out.

So this is it, thought Lucy as they found their way back out into the upper-Narnia again where the sun shown above them, we're going to live happily ever after.

Edmund sealed off the cave and then turned back to Lucy-his Lucy. She put the now-useless lantern down and took a few steps closer to him as he wrapped his arms around her middle and pressed his lips against hers.

It was summer, and back at Cair Paravel, the two rose trees were still blooming with the most beautiful roses-white and red.


End file.
